
Glass. 
Book. 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



THE ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 
IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR 

The Advance of the English Novel 

Archibald Marshall 

The Beginnings of the English Ro- 
mantic Movement 

Essays on Modern Novelists 

Essays on Russian Novelists 

Essays on Books 

Browning: How to Know Him 

Teaching in School and College 



THE 

ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 



BY 

WILLIAM LYON PHELPS 

Lampson Professor of English Literature at Yale 

Member of the National Institute of 

Arts and Letters 



01 't is an easy thing 
To write and sing; 
But to write true, unfeigned verse 
Is very hard! 

— Hekry Vaughak, 1655 




NEW YORK 

DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 

1918 



.^^ 



,6^ 



'^ 



<b 



Copyright. 1917, 1918 
By DODD, mead AND COMPANY, Inc. 



OCT -i \m' 



VAIL-BALLOU COMPANY 
BINGHAMTON AND NEW YORK 



©Ci.A5ai9(31 



TO 

MY FRIEND FOR FORTY YEARS 

FRANK W. HUBBARD 



ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

The publishers of the works of the poets from 
whom illustrative passages are cited in this vol- 
ume, have courteously and generously given per- 
mission, and I take this opportunity of expressing 
my thanks to The Macmillan Company, who pub- 
lish the poems of Thomas Hardy, William Wat- 
son, John Masefield, W. W. Gibson, Ralph Hodg- 
son, W. B. Yeats, ''A. E.," James Stephens, 
E. A. Robinson, Vachel Lindsay, Amy Lowell, 
Edgar Lee Masters, Sara Teasdale, J. C. Under- 
wood, Fannie Stearns Davis; to Henry Holt and 
Company, who publish the poems of Walter De 
La Mare, Edward Thomas, Padraic Colum, Rob- 
ert Frost, Louis Untermeyer, Sarah N. Cleg- 
horn, Margaret Widdemer, Carl Sandburg, and 
the two poems by Henry A. Beers quoted in this 
book, which appeared in The Ways of Yale; to 
Charles Scribner's Sons, publishers of the poems 
of George Santayana, Henry Van Dyke, Corinne 
Roosevelt Robinson, Alan Seeger; to Houghton, 
Mifflin and Company, publishers of the poems 
of Josephine Peabody, Anna Hempstead Branch, 
and W. A. Bradley's Old Christmas; to The 
John Lane Company, publishers of the poems 
of Stephen Phillips, Rupert Brooke, Ben- 



viii ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

jamin R. C. Low; to the Frederick A. Stokes 
Company, publishers of the poems of Alfred 
Noyes, Robert Nichols, Thomas MacDonagh, 
Witter Bynner; to the Yale University Press, 
publishers of the poems of W. A. Percy, 
Brian Hooker, W. R. Benet, C. M. Lewis, E. B. 
Reed, F. E. Pierce, R. B. Glaenzer, L. W. Dodd; 
to the Oxford University Press, publishers of 
the poems of Robert Bridges ; to Alfred A. Knopf, 
publisher of the poems of W. H. Davies ; to John 
W. Luce and Company, publishers of the poems 
of John M. Synge ; to Harper and Brothers, pub- 
lishers of William Watson's The Man Who Saw; 
to Longmans, Green and Company, publishers of 
the poems of Willoughby Weaving; to Double- 
day, Page and Company, publishers of the poems 
of James Elroy Flecker; to the Bobbs-Merrill 
Company, publishers of the poems of W. D. 
Foulke; to Thomas B. Mosher, publisher of the 
poems of W. A. Bradley, W. E. Henley ; to James 
T. White and Company, publishers of William 
Griffiths; Francis Thompson's In No Strange 
Land appeared in the Athenceum and Lilimn 
Regis in the Dublin Review; the poem by 
Scudder Middleton appeared in Contemporary 
Verse, that by Allan Updegratf in the Forum, and 
that by D. H. Lawrence in Georgian Poetry 
1913-15, published by The Poetry Bookshop, 
London. 

The titles of the several volumes of poems with 
dates of publication are given in my text. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENT ix 

I am grateful to tlie Yale University Librarians 
for help on bibliographical matters, and to Pro- 
fessor Charles Bennett and Byrne Hackett, Es- 
quire, for giving some facts about the Irish poets. 

W. L. P. 



PREFACE 

The material in this volume originally ap- 
peared in The Bookman, 1917-1918. It is now 
published with much addition and revision. 

The Great War has had a stimulating effect on 
the production of poetry. Professional poets 
have been spokesmen for the inarticulate, and a 
host of hitherto unknown writers have acquired 
reputation. An immense amount of verse has 
been written by soldiers in active service. The 
Allies are fighting for human liberty, and this 
Idea is an inspiration. It is comforting to know 
that some who have made the supreme sacrifice 
will be remembered through their printed poems, 
and it is a pleasure to aid in giving them public 
recognition. 

Furthermore, the war, undertaken by Germany 
to dominate the world by crushing the power of 
Great Britain, has united all English-speaking 
people as nothing else could have done. In this 
book, all poetry written in the English language 
is considered as belonging to English literature. 

It should be apparent that I am not a sectarian 
in art, but am thankful for poetry wherever I find 
it. I have endeavored to make clear the artistic, 
intellectual, and spiritual significance of many of 



xii PREFACE 

our contemporary English-writing poets. The 
difficulties of such an undertaking are obvious; 
but there are two standards of measure. One is 
the literature of the past, the other is the life 
of today. I judge every new poet by these. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTEE PAGE 

I Some Contrasts — Henley, Thompson, Hardy, 

Kipling 1 

II Phillips, Watson, Noyes, Housman .... 35 

III John Masefield 71 

IV Gibson and Hodgson 98 

V Brooke, Flecker, De La Mare, and Others . . 124 

VI The Irish Poets 157 

VII American Veterans and Forerunners . . . 194 

VIII Vachel Lindsay and Robert Frost .... 213 

IX Amy Lowell, Anna Branch, Edgar Lee Mas- 
ters, Louis Untermeyer 245 

X Sara Teasdale, Alan Seeger, and Others . . 277 

XI A Group of Yale Poets 312 

Appendix 335 

Index 339 



THE ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 
IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 



THE ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 
IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 

CHAPTER I 

SOME CONTEASTS HENLEY, THOMPSON, HABDY, 

KIPLING 

Meaning of the word "advance" — the present widespread in- 
terest in poetry — the spiritual warfare — Henley and Thompson 
— Thomas Hardy a prophet in literature — The Dynasts — his 
atheism — his lyrical power — Kipling the Victorian — his future 
possibilities — Robert Bridges — Robert W. Service. 

Although English poetry of the twentieth cen- 
tury seems inferior to the poetry of the Victorian 
epoch, for in England there is no one equal to Ten- 
nyson or Browning, and in America no one equal 
to Poe, Emerson, or Whitman, still it may fairly be 
said that we can discern an advance in English po- 
etry not wholly to be measured either by the calen- 
dar and the clock, or by sheer beauty of expression. 
I should not like to say that Joseph Conrad is a 
greater writer than Walter Scott ; and yet in The 
Nigger of the Narcissus there is an intellectual 
sincerity, a profound psychological analysis, a 
resolute intention to discover and to reveal the 
final truth concerning the children of the sea, that 
one would hardly expect to find in the works of the 
wonderful Wizard. Shakespeare was surely a 



2 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

greater poet than Wordswortli ; but the man of the 
Lakes, with the rich inheritance of two centuries, 
had a capital of thought unpossessed by the great 
dramatist, which, invested by his own genius, en- 
abled him to draw returns from nature undreamed 
of by his mighty predecessor. Wordsworth was 
not great enough to have written King Lear; and 
Shakespeare was not late enough to have written 
Tintern Ahhey. Every poet lives in his own 
time, has a share in its scientific and philosophical 
advance, and his individuality is coloured 'by his 
experience. Even if he take a Greek myth for a 
subject, he will regard it and treat it in the light 
of the day when he sits down at his desk, and ad- 
dresses himself to the task of composition. It is 
absurd to call the Victorians old-fashioned or out 
of date ; they were as intensely modern as we, only 
their modernity is naturally not ours. 

A great work of art is never old-fashioned ; be- 
cause it expresses in final form some truth about 
human nature, and human nature never changes — 
in comparison with its primal elements, the moun- 
tains are ephemeral. A drama dealing with the 
impalpable human soul is more likely to stay true 
than a treatise on geology. This is the notable ad- 
vantage that works of art have over works of sci- 
ence, the advantage of being and remaining true. 
No matter how important the contribution of sci- 
entific books, they are alloyed with inevitable er- 
ror, and after the death of their authors must be 
constantly revised by lesser men, improved by 



SOME CONTRASTS 3 

smaller minds; whereas the masterpieces of po- 
etry, drama and fiction cannot be revised, because 
they are always true. The latest edition of a work 
of science is the most valuable ; of literature, the 
earliest. 

Apart from the natural and inevitable advance 
in poetry that every year witnesses, we are liv- 
ing in an age characterized both in England and 
in America by a remarkable advance in poetry as 
a vital influence. Earth's oldest inhabitants prob- 
ably cannot remember a time when there were so 
many poets in activity, when so many books of 
poems were not only read, but bought and sold, 
when poets were held in such high esteem, when so 
much was written and published about poetry, 
when the mere forms of verse were the theme of 
such hot debate. There are thousands of minor 
poets, but poetry has ceased to be a minor subject. 
Any one mentally alive cannot escape it. Poetry 
is in the air, and everybody is catching it. Some 
American magazines are exclusively devoted to the 
printing of contemporary poems ; anthologies are 
multiplying, not ''Keepsakes" and ''Books of 
G-ems/' but thick volumes representing the 
bumper crop of the year. Many poets are reciting 
their poems to big, eager, enthusiastic audiences, 
and the atmosphere is charged with the melodies 
of ubiquitous minstrelsy. 

The time is ripe for the appearance of a great 
poet. A vast audience is gazing expectantly at 
a stage crowded with subordinate actors, waiting 



4 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

for the Master to appear. The Greek dramatists 
were sure of their public; so were the Russian 
novelists; so were the German musicians. The 
''conditions" for poetry are intensified by reason 
of the Great War. We have got everything 
except the Genius. And the paradox is that al- 
though the Genius may arise out of right condi- 
tions, he may not; he may come like a thief in 
the night. The contrast between public interest 
in poetry in 1918 and in 1830, for an illustration, 
is unescapable. At that time the critics and the 
magazine writers assured the world that ''poetry 
is dead. ' ' Ambitious young authors were gravely 
advised not to attempt anything in verse — as 
though youth ever listened to advice! Many 
critics went so far as to insist that the temper of 
the age was not "adapted" to poetiy, that not 
only was there no interest in it, but that even if 
the Man should appear, he would find it impossible 
to sing in such a time and to such a coldly indif- 
ferent audience. And yet at that precise mo- 
ment, Tennyson launched his "chiefly lyrical" 
volume, and Browning was speedily to follow. 

Man is ever made humble by the facts of life; 
and even literary critics cannot altogether ignore 
them. Let us not then make the mistake of be- 
ing too sure of the immediate future; nor the 
mistake of overestimating our contemporary 
poets ; nor the mistake of despising the giant Vic- 
torians. Let us devoutly thank God that poetry 
has come into its own; that the modern poet, in 



SOME CONTRASTS 5 

public estimation, is a Hero ; that no one has to 
apologize either for reading- or for writing verse. 
An age that loves poetry with the passion char- 
acteristic of the twentieth century is not a flat or 
materialistic age. We are not disobedient unto 
the heavenly vision. 

^ In the world of thought and spirit this is essen- 
tially a fighting age. The old battle between the 
body and the soul, between Paganism and Chris- 
tianity, was never so hot as now, and those who 
take refuge in neutrality receive contempt. Pan 
and Jesus Christ have never had so many enthu- 
siastic followers. We Christians believe our 
Leader rose from the dead, and the followers of 
Pan say their god never died at all. It is sig- 
nificant that at the beginning of the twentieth cen- 
tury two English poets wrote side by side, each 
of whom unconsciously waged an irreconcilable 
conflict with the other, and each of whom speaks 
from the grave today to a concourse of followers. 
These two poets did not ''flourish" in the twen- 
tieth centuiy, because the disciple of the bodily 
Pan was a cripple, and the disciple of the spirit- 
ual Christ was a gutter-snipe; but they both lived, 
lived abundantly, and wrote real poetry. I refer 
to William Ernest Henley, who died in 1903, and 
to Francis Thompson, who died in 1907. 

Both Henley and Thompson loved the crowded 
streets of London, but they saw different visions 
there. Henley felt in the dust and din of the city 
the irresistible urge of spring, the invasion of the 



6 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

smell of distant meadows ; the hurly-burly bearing 
witness to the annual conquest of Pan. 

Here in this radiant and immortal street 

Lavishly and omnipotently as ever 

In the open hills, the undissembling dales, 

The laughing-places of the juvenile earth. 

For lo! the wills of man and woman meet, 

Meet and are moved, each unto each endeared 

As once in Eden's prodigal bowers befel. 

To share his shameless, elemental mirth 

In one great act of faith, while deep and strong, 

Incomparably nerved and cheered. 

The enormous heart of London joys to beat 

To the measures of his rough, majestic song: 

The lewd, perennial, overmastering spell 

That keeps the rolling universe ensphered 

And life and all for which life lives to long 

Wanton and wondrous and for ever well. 

The London, Voluntaries of Henley, from which 
the above is a fair example, may have suggested 
something to Vachel Lindsay both in their irregu- 
lar singing quality and in the direction, borrowed 
from notation, which accompanies each one, 
Andante con moto, Scherzando, Largo e mesto, 
Allegro maestoso. Henley's Pagan resistance to 
Puritan morality and convention, constantly ex- 
hibited positively in his verse, and negatively in 
his defiant Introduction to the Works of Burns and 
in the famous paper on R. L. S., is the main char- 
acteristic of his mind and temperament. He was 
by nature a rebel — a rebel against the Anglican 
God and against English social conventions. He 
loved all fighting rebels, and one of his most 



W. E. HENLEY 7 

spirited poems deals affectionately with our 
Southern Confederate soldiers, in the last days of 
their hopeless struggle. His most famous lyric 
is an assertion of the indomitable human will in 
the presence of adverse destiny. This trumpet 
blast has awakened sympathetic echoes from all 
sorts and conditions of men, although that creed- 
less Christian, James Whitcomb Riley, regarded 
it with genial contempt, thinking that the philoso- 
phy it represented was not only futile, but dan- 
gerous, in that it ignored the deepest facts of 
human life. He once asked to have the poem read 
aloud to him, as he had forgotten its exact words, 
and when the reader finished impressively 

I am the Master of my fate: 
I am the Captain of my soul — 

"The hell you are," said Riley with a laugh. 

Henley is, of course, interesting not merely be- 
cause of his paganism, and robust worldliness ; he 
had the poet 's imagination and gift of expression. 
He loved to take a familiar idea fixed in a familiar 
phrase, and write a lovely musical variation on 
the theme. I do not think he ever wrote anything 
more beautiful than his setting of the phrase 
"Over the hills and far away," which appealed to 
his memory much as the three words "Far-far- 
away" affected Tennyson. No one can read this 
little masterpiece without that wonderful sense of 
melody lingering in the mind after the voice of 
the singer is silent. 



8 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

Where forlorn sunsets flare and fade 

On desolate sea and lonely sand, 
Out of the silence and the shade 

What is the voice of strange command 
Calling you still, as friend calls friend 

With love that cannot brook delay. 
To rise and follow the ways that wend 

Over the hills and far away? 

Hark in the city, street on street 

A roaring reach of death and life, 
Of vortices that clash and fleet 

And ruin in appointed strife. 
Hark to it calling, calling clear. 

Calling until you cannot stay 
From dearer things than your own most dear 

Over the hills and far away. 

Out of the sound of ebb and flow, 

Out of the sight of lamp and star. 
It calls you where the good winds blow. 

And the unchanging meadows are: 
From faded hopes and hopes agleam, 

It calls you, calls you night and day 
Beyond the dark into the dream 

Over the hills and far away. 

In temperament Henley was an Elizabethan. 
Ben Jonson might have irritated him, but he would 
have got along very well with Kit Marlowe. He 
was an Elizabethan in the spaciousness of his 
mind, in his robust salt-water breeziness, in his 
hearty, spontaneous singing, and in his deification 
of the human will. The English novelist. Miss 
Willcocks, a child of the twentieth century, has 
remarked, *'It is by their will that we recognize 
the Elizabethans, by the will that drove them over 



FRANCIS THOMPSON 9 

the seas of passion, as well as over the seas that 
ebb and flow with the salt tides. . . . For, from a 
sensitive correspondence with environment our 
race has passed into another stage; it is marked 
now by a passionate desire for the mastery of life 
— a desire, spiritualized in the highest lives, ma- 
terialized in the lowest, so to mould environment 
that the lives to come may be shaped to our will. 
It is this which accounts for the curious likeness in 
our today with that of the Elizabethans." 

As Henley was an Elizabethan, so his brilliant 
contemporary, Francis Thompson, was a ''meta- 
physical," a man of the seventeenth century. 
Like Emerson, he is closer in both form and spirit 
to the mystical poets that followed the age of 
Shakespeare than he is to any other group or 
school. One has only to read Donne, Crashaw, 
and Vaughan to recognize the kinship. Like these 
three men of genius, Thompson was not only pro- 
foundly spiritual — ^he was aflame with religious 
passion. He was exalted in a mystical ecstasy, 
all a wonder and a wild desire. He was an in- 
spired poet, careless of method, careless of form, 
careless of thought-sequences. The zeal for God's 
house had eaten him up. His poetry is like the 
burning bush, revealing God in the fire. His 
strange figures of speech, the molten metal of his 
language, the sincerity of his faith, have given 
to his poems a persuasive influence which is be- 
ginning to be felt far and wide, and which, I be- 
lieve, will never die. One critic complains that the 



10 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

young men of Oxford and Cambridge have for- 
saken Tennyson, and now read only Francis 
Thompson. He need not be alarmed ; these young 
men will all come back to Tennyson, for sooner 
or later, everybody comes back to Tennyson. It is 
rather a matter of joy that Thompson's religious 
poetry can make the hearts of young men burn 
within them. Young men are right in hating con- 
ventional, empty phrases, words that have lost all 
hitting power, hollow forms and bloodless cere- 
monies. Thompson's lips were touched with a 
live coal from the altar. 

Francis Thompson walked with God. Instead 
of seeking God, as so many high-minded folk 
have done in vain, Thompson had the real and 
overpowering sensation that God was seeking him. 
The Hound of Heaven was everlastingly after 
him, pursuing him with the certainty of capture. 
In trying to escape, he found torment; in sur- 
render, the peace that passes all understanding. 
That extraordinary poem, which thrillingly de- 
scribes the eager, searching love of God, like a 
father looking for a lost child and determined to 
find him, might be taken as a modern version of 
the one hundred and thirty-ninth psalm, perhaps 
the most marvellous of all religious masterpieces. 

Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art ac- 
quainted with all my ways. 

Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand 
upon me. 

Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from 
thy presence? 



FRANCIS THOMPSON 11 

If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there; if I make my bed 

in hell, behold, thou art there. 
If I take the wings of the morning', and dwell in the uttermost 

parts of the sea; 
Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall 

hold me. 

The highest spiritual poetry is not that which 
portrays soul-hunger, the bitterness of the weary 
search for God; it is that which reveals an in- 
tense consciousness of the all-enveloping Divine 
Presence. Children do not seek the love of their 
parents ; they can not escape its searching, eager, 
protecting power. We know how Dr. Johnson 
was affected by the lines 

Quaerens me sedisti lassus 
Redemisti crueem passus 
Tantus labor non sit passus. 

Francis Thompson's long walks by day and by 
night had magnificent company. In the country, 
in the streets of London, he was attended by sera- 
phim and cherubim. The heavenly visions were 
more real to him than London Bridge. Just as 
when we travel far from those we love, we are 
brightly aware of their presence, and know that 
their affection is a greater reality than the scen- 
ery from the train window, so Thompson would 
have it that the angels were all about us. They do 
not live in some distant Paradise, the only gate 
to which is death — they are here now, and their 
element is the familiar atmosphere of earth. 
Shortly after he died, there was found among 



12 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

his papers a bit of manuscript verse, called '*In 
No Strange Land. ' ' Whether it was a first draft 
which he meant to revise, or whether he intended 
it for publication, we cannot tell; but despite the 
roughnesses of rhythm — which take us back to 
some of Donne's shaggy and splendid verse — the 
thought is complete. It is one of the great poems 
of the twentieth century, and expresses the es- 
sence of Thompson's religion. 



"IN NO STRANGE LAND" 

world invisible, we view thee: 
world intangible, we touch thee : 

world unknowable, we know thee : 
Inapprehensible, we clutch thee! 

Does the fish soar to find the ocean, 
The eagle plunge to find the air. 

That we ask of the stars in motion 
If they have rumour of thee there? 

Not where the wheeling systems darken, 
And our benumbed conceiving soars : 

The drift of pinions, would we barken. 
Beats at our own clay-shuttered doors. 

The angels keep their ancient places — 
Turn but a stone, and start a wing! 

'Tis ye, 'tis your estranged faces 

That miss the many-splendoured thing. 

But (when so sad thou canst not sadder) 

Cry ; and upon thy so sore loss 
Shall shine the traffic of Jacob's ladder 

Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross. 



FRANCIS THOMPSON 13 

Yea, in the night, ray Soul, my daughter, 

Cry, clinging heaven by the hems: 
And lo, Christ walking on the water. 

Not of Oennesareth, but Thames! 

Thompson planned a series of Ecclesiastical 
Ballads, of which he completed only two — Lilium 
Regis and The Veteran of Heaven. These were 
found among his papers, and were published in 
the January-April 1910 number of the Dublin Re- 
view. Both are great poems; but Lilium Regis 
is made doubly impressive by the present war. 
With the clairvoyance of approaching death, 
Thompson foresaw the world-struggle, the tempo- 
rary eclipse of the Christian Church, and its ulti- 
mate triumph. The Lily of the King is Christ ^s 
Holy Church. I do not see how any one can read 
this poem without a thrill. 

LILIUM REGIS 

Lily of the King ! low lies thy silver wing, 

And long has been the hour of thine unqueening; 

And thy scent of Paradise on the night-wind spills its sighs. 

Nor any take the secrets of its meaning. 

Lily of the King ! I speak a heavy thing, 

patience, most sorrowful of daughters! 

Lo, the hour is at hand for the troubling of the land. 

And red shall be the breaking of the waters. 

Sit fast upon thy stalk, when the blast shall with thee talk. 

With the mercies of the king for thine awning; 

And the just understand that thine hour is at hand. 

Thine hour at hand with power in the dawning. 

When the nations lie in blood, and their kings a broken brood. 

Look up, most sorrowful of daughters ! 



14 ADVANCE OF ENOLISH POETRY 

Lift up thy head and hark what sounds are in the dark, 
For His feet are coming to thee on the waters! 

Lily of the King! I shall not see, that sing, 

1 shall not see the hour of thy queening ! 

But my song shall see, and wake, like a flower that dawn-winds 

shake, 
And sigh with joy the odours of its meaning. 
Lily of the King, remember then the thing 
That this dead mouth sang; and thy daughters, 
As they dance before His way, sing there on the Day, 
What I sang when the Night was on the waters ! 

There is a man of genius living in England to- 
day who has been writing verse for sixty years, 
but who received no public recognition as a poet 
until the twentieth century. This man is Thomas 
Hardy. He has the double distinction of being 
one of the great Victorian novelists, and one of 
the most notable poets of the twentieth century. 
At nearly eighty years of age, he is in full in- 
tellectual vigour, enjoys a creative power in verse 
that we more often associate with youth, and 
writes poetry that in matter and manner belongs 
distinctly to our time. He could not possibly be 
omitted from any survey of contemporary pro- 
duction. 

As is so commonly the case with distinguished 
novelists, Thomas Hardy practised verse before 
prose. From 1860 to 1870 he wrote many poems, 
some of which appear among the Love Lyrics in 
Time's Laughing stocks, 1909. Then he began a 
career in prose fiction which has left him today 
without a living rival in the world. In 1898, with 



THOMAS HAEDY 15 

the volume called W ess ex Poems, embellished with 
illustrations from his own hand, he challenged 
criticism as a professional poet. The moderate 
but definite success of this collection emboldened 
him to produce in 1901, Poems of the Past and 
Present. In 1904, 1906, 1908, were issued suc- 
cessively the three parts of The Dynasts, a thor- 
oughly original and greatly-planned epical drama 
of the Napoleonic wars. This was followed by 
three books of verse. Time's Laughing stocks in 
1909, Satires of Circumstance, 1914, and Moments 
of Vision, 1917 ; and he is a familiar and welcome 
guest in contemporary magazines. 

Is it possible that when, at the close of the nine- 
teenth century, Thomas Hardy formally aban- 
doned prose for verse, he was either consciously or 
subconsciously aware of the coming renaissance 
of poetry? Certainly his change in expression 
had more significance than an individual caprice. 
It is a notable fact that the present poetic revival, 
wherein are enlisted so many enthusiastic youth- 
ful volunteers, should have had as one of its 
prophets and leaders a veteran of such power and 
fame. Perhaps Mr. Hardy would regard his own 
personal choice as no factor; the Immanent and 
Unconscious Will had been busy in his mind, for 
reasons unknown to him, unknown to man, least 
of all known to Itself. Leslie Stephen once re- 
marked, ''The deepest thinker is not really — 
though we often use the phrase — in advance of 



10 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

Ills (lay so much as in tho line alon^ wliicli ad- 
vance takes place." 

Tjookinii^ backward i'roni the year 1918, we may 
sec some new meaning in the spectacle of two 
modern leaders in (iction, Hardy and Meredith, 
each prefcrrin.ij: as a means of expression poetry 
to ])r()se, each thiukiiiLC his own verse better than 
his novels, and eacli writing verse that in sub- 
stance and manner belonp:s more to the twen- 
tieth than to the nineteenth century. Meredith 
always said that fiction was his kitchen wench; 
poetry was his Muse. 

The publication of ])oems written when he was 
about twenty-five is intei-estin^ to students of Mr. 
Hardy's tem])erainent, for they show that he was 
then as complete, though perhaps not so philo- 
sophical a pessimist, as he is now. Tho present 
world-war may seem to him a vindication of his 
despair, and therefore proof of the blind folly 
of ihose who pray to Our Father in Heaven. He 
is, iliough I think not avowedly so, an adherent 
of tlie pirdosophy of Schopenhauer and von Hart- 
mann. The primal force, from which all things 
proceed, is the Immanent Will. The Will is un- 
conscious and omnipotent. It is superhuman only 
in })Ower, lacking intelligence, foresight, and any 
sense of ethical values. In The Di/nasfs, Mr. 
Hardy has written au epic illustration of the doc- 
trines of pessimism. 

Supernatural machinery and celestial inspira- 
tion have always been more or less conventional in 



THOMAS HARDY 17 

the Epic. Ancient writers invoked the Muse. 
Wlien Milton l)e<::an his great task, he wishcnl to 
produce something chissic in i'orni and (JiiriHtiau 
in spirit. II(^ found an admirable solution of his 
prohh'm in adouhhi invocation — first ol* the Heav- 
enly I\1us(^ of Mount Sinai, second, of the Holy 
Spirit. In (he composition of In Memoriani, 
Tennyson knew that an invocation of tlie Muse 
would give an intolerjibie air of artificiality to 
the poem; lu^ therefore, in the introductory 
stan/as, offered up a prayer to the Son of (Jod. 
Now it was impossible for Mr. Hardy to make 
use of Greek Deities, or of Jehovah, or of any 
revelation of God in (yhrist; to his mind all three 
ecjually belonged to tlu; luml)er room of discredited 
and discard(Ml myth, lie believes that any con- 
ception of the ]'rimal Force as a Personality is 
not only obsolete among thinking men and women, 
but that it is unworthy of modern thought. It is 
perhaps easy to mistake our own world of thought 
for th(! thought of the world. 

In his Preface, written with assurance and 
dignity, Mr. Hardy says: ''The wide prevalence 
of the Monistic theory of the Universe forbade, in 
this twentieth century, the inifjortaiion of Divine 
personages from any anti(|ue Mythology as ready- 
made sources or channels of (/ausation, even in 
verse, and excluded the celestial machinery of, say. 
Paradise Lost, as peremptorily as that of the 
Iliad or the Eddas. And the abandonment of the 
masculine pronoun in allusions to the First or 



18 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

Fundamental Enerjjy seemed a necessary and 
logical consequence of the long abandonment by 
tliinkers of the ant]irop()mori)liic conception of 
the same. ' ' Accordingly he arranged a group of 
Phantom Intelligences that supply adequately a 
Chorus and a philosophical basis for his world- 
drama. 

Like Browning in the original preface to 
Paracelsus, our author expressly disclaims any 
intention of writing a play for the stage. It is 
*' intended simply for mental performance," and 
** Whether mental performance alone may not 
eventually be the fate of all drama other than 
that of contemporary or frivolous life, is a kin- 
dred question not without interest." The ques- 
tion has been since answered in another way than 
that implied, not merely by the success of com- 
munity drama, but by the actual production of 
The Dynasts on the London stage under the di- 
rection of the brilliant and audacious Granville 
Barker. I would give much to have witnessed 
this experiment, which Mr. Barker insists was suc- 
cessful. 

Whether The Dynasts will finally take a place 
among the world's masterpieces of literature or 
not, nnist of course be left to future generations 
to decide. Two things are clear. The publica- 
tion of the second and third parts distinctly raised 
public opinion of the work as a whole, and now 
that it is ten years old, we know that no man on 
earth except Mr. Hardy could have written it. 



THOMAS I-IARDY 19 

To produce this particular epic required a poet, 
a prose master, a dramatist, a philosopher, and 
an architect. Mr. Hardy is each and all of the 
five, and by no means least an architect. The plan 
of the whole thing, in one hundred and thirty 
scenes, which seemed at first confused, now ap- 
pears in retrosi)ect orderly ; and the projection of 
the various geographical scenes is thoroughly 
architectonic. 

If the work fails to survive, it will be because 
of its low elevation on the purely literary side. 
In spite of occasional powerful phrases, as 

Wliat corpse is curious on the longitude 
And situation of his cemetery! 

the verso as a whole wants beauty of tone and 
felicity of diction. It is more like a map than a 
painting. One has only to recall the extraordi- 
nary charm of the Elizabethans to understand 
why so many pages in The Dynasts arouse only an 
intellectual interest. But no one can i^ead the 
whole drama without an immense respect for the 
range and the grasp of the author's mind. Fur- 
thermore, every one of its former admirers ought 
to reread it in 1918. The present world-war gives 
to this Napoleonic epic an acute and prophetic 
interest nothing short of astounding. 

A considerable number of Mr. Hardy's poems 
are concerned with the idea of God, apparently 
never far from the author's mind. I suppose he 
thinks of God eveiy day. Yet his faith is the op- 



20 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

posite of that expressed in the Hound of Heaven 
— in few words, it seems to be, ''Resist the Lord, 
and He will flee from you. ' ' Mr. Hardy is not con- 
tent with banishing God from the realm of mod- 
ern thought ; he is not content merely with killing 
Him ; he means to give Him a decent burial,, with 
fitting obsequies. And there is a long procession 
of mourners, some of whom are both worthy 
and distinguished. In the interesting poem, 
God's Funeral, written in 1908-1910, which be- 
gins 

I saw a slowly stepping train — 
Lined on the brows, scoop-eyed and bent and hoar — 
Following in files across a twilit plain 
A strange and mystic form the foremost bore 

the development of the conception of God through 
human history is presented with skill in concision. 
He was man-like at first, then an amorphous cloud, 
then endowed with mighty wings, then jealous, 
fierce, yet long-suffering and full of mercy. 

And, tricked by our own early dream 
And need of solace, we grew self -deceived, 
I Our making soon our maker did we dream, 

And what we had imagined we believed. 

Till, in Time's stayless stealthy swing, 
Uncompromising rude reality 
Mangled the Monarch of our fashioning. 
Who quavered, sank; and now has ceased to be. 

Among the mourners is no less a person than the 
poet himself, for in former years — perhaps as a 
boy — he, too, had worshipped, and therefore he 



THOMAS HARDY 21 

has no touch of contempt for those who still be- 
lieve. 

I could not prop their faith : and yet 
Many I had known : with all I sympathized ; 
And though struck speechless, I did not forget 
That what Was mourned for, I, too, once had prized. 

In the next stanza, the poet's oft-expressed be- 
lief in the wholesome, antiseptic power of pessi- 
mism is reiterated, together with a hint, that when 
we have once and for all put God in His grave, 
some better way of bearing life's burden will be 
found, because the new way will be based upon 
hard fact. 

Still, how to bear such loss I deemed 
The insistent question for each animate mind. 
And gazing, to my growing sight there seemed 
A pale yet positive gleam low down behind, 

Whereof, to lift the general night, 
A certain few who stood aloof had said, 
"See you upon the horizon that small light — 
Swelling somewhat?" Each mourner shook his head. 

And they composed a crowd of whom 
Some were right good, and many nigh the best. . . . 
Thus dazed and puzzled 'twixt the gleam and gloom 
Mechanically I followed with the rest. 

This pale gleam takes on a more vivid hue in a 
poem written shortly after God's Funeral, called 
A Plaint to Man, where God remonstrates with 
man for having created Him at all, since His life 
was to be so short and so futile : 



22 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

And tomorrow the whole of me disappears, 
The truth should be told, and the fact be faced 
That had best been faced in earlier years : 

The fact of life with dependence placed 
On tlio human heart's resource alone, 
In brotherhood bonded close and graced 

With loving-kindness fully blown, 
And visioned help unsought, unknown. 

Other poems that express what is and what 
ought to be the attitude of man toward God are 
New Year's Eve, To Sincerity, and the beautiful 
lyric, Let Me Enjoy, where Mr. Hardy has been 
more than usually successful in fashioning both 
language and rhythm into a garment worthy of 
the thought. No one can read The Impercipient 
without recognizing that Mr. Hardy's atheism 
is as honest and as sincere as the religious faith 
of others, and that no one regrets the blankness 
of his universe more than he. He would believe 
if he could. 

Pessimism is the basis of all his verse, as it 
is of his prose. It is expressed not merely 
philosophically in poems of ideas, but over and 
over again concretely in poems of incident. He 
is a pessimist both in fancy and in fact, and after 
reading some of our sugary "glad" books, I find 
his bitter taste rather refreshing. The titles of 
his recent collections, Time's Laughing stocks and 
Satires of Circumstance, sufficiently indicate the 
ill fortune awaiting his personages. At his best, 
his lyrics written in the minor key have a noble. 



THOMAS HARDY 23 

solemn adagio movement. At his worst — for like 
all poets, he is sometimes at his worst — the truth 
of life seems rather obstinately warped. Why 
should legitimate love necessarily bring misery, 
and illegitimate passion produce permanent hap- 
piness? And in the piece, ^'Ah, are you digging 
on my grave?" pessimism approaches a reductio 
ad absurdum. 

Dramatic power, which is one of its author's 
greatest gifts, is frequently finely revealed. After 
reading A Tramp-woman's Tragedy, one unhesi- 
tatingly accords Mr. Hardy a place among the 
English writers of ballads. For this is a genuine 
ballad, in story, in diction, and in vigour. 

Yet as a whole, and in spite of Mr. Hardy's 
love of the dance and of dance music, his poetry 
lacks grace and movement. His war poem. Men 
Who March Away, is singularly halting and awk- 
ward. His complete poetical works are interest- 
ing because they proceed from an interesting 
mind. His range of thought, both in reminiscence 
and in speculation, is immensely wide ; his power 
of concentration recalls that of Browning. 

I have thought sometimes, and thought long and hard. 

I have stood before, gone round a serious thing, 

Tasked my whole mind to touch and clasp it close, 

As I stretch forth my arm to touch this bar. 

God and man, and what duty I owe both, — 

I dare to say I have confronted these 

In thought: but no such faculty helped here. 

No such faculty alone could help Mr. Hardy to 
the highest peaks of poetry, any more than it 



24 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

served Caponsacchi in his spiritual crisis. He 
thinks interesting thoughts, because he has an or- 
iginal mind. It is possible to be a great poet with- 
out possessing much intellectual wealth; just as it 
is possible to be a great singer, and yet be both 
shallow and dull. The divine gift of poetry seems 
sometimes as accidental as the formation of the 
throat. I do not believe that Tennyson was either 
shallow or dull ; but I do not think he had so rich 
a mind as Thomas Hardy's, a mind so quaint, so 
humorous, so sharp. Yet Tennyson was incom- 
parably a greater poet. 

The greatest poetry always transports us, and 
although I read and reread the Wessex poet with 
never-lagging attention — I find even the drawings 
in Wessex Poems so fascinating that I wish he 
had illustrated all his books — I am always con- 
scious of the time and the place. I never get the 
unmistakable spinal chill. He has too thorough 
a command of his thoughts; they never possess 
him, and they never soar away with him. Prose 
may be controlled, but poetry is a possession. Mr. 
Hardy is too keenly aware of what he is about. 
In spite of the fact that he has written verse all 
his life, he seldom writes unwrinkled song. He 
is, in the last analysis, a master of prose who has 
learned the technique of verse, and who now 
chooses to express his thoughts and his observa- 
tions in rime and rhythm. 

The title of Mr. Hardy's latest volume of poems, 
Moments of Vision, leads one to expect rifts in 



THOMAS HARDY 25 

the clouds — and one is not disappointed. It is 
perhaps characteristic of the independence of our 
author, that steadily preaching pessimism when 
the world was peaceful, he should now not be per- 
haps quite so sure of his creed when a larger pro- 
portion of the world's inhabitants are in pain than 
ever before. One of the fallacies of pessimism 
consists in the fact that its advocates often call a 
witness to the stand whose testimony counts 
against them. Nobody really loves life, loves this 
world, like your pessimist; nobody is more re- 
luctant to leave it. He therefore, to support liis 
argument that life is evil, calls up evidence which 
proves that it is brief and transitory. But if 
life is evil, one of its few redeeming features 
should be its brevity; the pessimist should look 
forward to death as a man in prison looks toward 
the day of his release. Yet this attitude toward 
death is almost never taken by the atheists or 
the pessimists, while it is the burden of many 
of the triumphant hymns of the Christian Church. 
Now, as our spokesman for pessimism approaches 
the end — which I fervently hope may be afar off 
— life seems sweet. 

"FOR LIFE I HAD NEVER CARED GREATLY" 

For Life I had never eared greatly, 

As worth a man's while; 

Peradventures unsought, 
Peradventures that finished in nought, 
Had kept me from youth and through manhood till lately 

Unwon by its style. 



26 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

In earliest years — why I know not — 

I viewed it askance ; 

Conditions of doubt, 
Conditions that slowly leaked out, 
May haply have bent me to stand and to show not 

Much zest for its dance. 

With symphonies soft and sweet colour 
It courted me then. 
Till evasions seemed wrong. 
Till evasions gave in to its song, 
And I warmed, till living aloofly loomed duller 
Than life among men. 

Anew I found nought to set eyes on, 

When, lifting its hand, 

It uncloaked a star. 
Uncloaked it from fog-damps afar, 
And showed its beams burning from pole to horizon 

As bright as a brand. 

And so, the rough highway forgetting, 

I pace hill and dale, 

Regarding the sky. 
Regarding the vision on high, 
And thus re-illumed have no humour for letting 

My pilgrimage fail. 

No one of course can judge of another's happi- 
ness; but it is difficult to imagine any man on 
earth who has had a happier life than Mr. Hardy. 
He has had his own genius for company all his 
days; he has been successful in literary art be- 
yond the wildest dreams of his youth; his acute 
perception has made the beauty of nature a mil- 
lion times more beautiful to him than to most of 
the children of men; his eye is not dim, nor his 
natural force abated. He has that which should 



THOMAS HAEDY 27 

accompany old age — honour, love, obedience, 
troops of friends. 

The last poem in Moments of Vision blesses 
rather than curses life. 

AFTERWARDS 

When the Present has latched its postern behind my tremu- 
lous stay 

And the May month flaps its glad green leaves like wings, 
Delicate-filmed as new-spun silk, will the people say 

"He was a man who used to notice such things"? 

If it be in the dusk when, like an eyelid's soundless blink, 
Tlie dewfall-hawk comes crossing the shades to alight 

Ujion the wind-warped upland thorn, will a gazer think, 
"To him this must have been a familiar sight"? 

If I pass during some nocturnal blackness, mothy and warm. 
When the hedgehog travels furtively over the lawn, 

Will they say, "He strove that such innocent creatures should 
come to no harm, 
But he could do little for them ; and now he is gone" ? 

If, when hearing that I have been stilled at last, they stand at 
the door, 

Watching the full-starred heavens that winter sees, 
Will this thought rise on those who will meet my face no more, 

"He was one who had an eye for such mysteries"? 

And will any say when my bell of quittance is heard in the 
gloom, 

And a crossing breeze cuts a pause in its outrollings. 
Till they rise again, as they were a new bell's boom, 

"He hears it not now, but he used to notice such things" ? 

Should Mr. Hardy ever resort to prayer — ^which 
I suppose is unlikely — his prayers ought to be 
the best in the world. According to Coleridge, he 



28 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

prayeth well who loveth well both man and bird 
and beast ; a beautiful characteristic of our great 
writer is his tenderness for every living thing. 
He will be missed by men^ women, children, and 
by the humblest animals; and if trees have any 
self-consciousness, they will miss him too. 

Rudyard Kipling is a Victorian poet, as Thomas 
Hardy is a Victorian novelist. When Tennyson 
died in 1892, the world, with approximate una- 
nimity, chose the young man from the East as his 
successor, and for twenty-five years he has been 
the Laureate of the British Empire in everything 
but the title. In the eighteenth century, when 
Gray regarded the offer of the Laureateship as an 
insult, Mr. Alfred Austin might properly have 
been appointed; but after the fame of Southey, 
and the mighty genius of Wordsworth and of 
Tennyson, it was cruel to put Alfred the Little in 
the chair of Alfred the Great. It was not an in- 
sult to Austin, but an insult to Poetry. With the 
elevation of the learned and amiable Dr. Bridges 
in 1913, the public ceased to care who holds the 
office. This eminently respectable appointment 
silenced both opposition and applause. We can 
only echo the language of Gray's letter to Mason, 
19 December, 1757: '*I interest myself a little 
in the history of it, and rather wish somebody 
may accept it that will retrieve the credit of the 
thing, if it be retrievable, or ever had any credit. 
. . . The office itself has always humbled the pro- 
fessor hitherto (even in an age when kings were 



RUDYARD KIPLING 29 

somebody), if he were a poor writer by making 
him more conspicuous, and if he were a good one 
by setting him at war with the little fry of his 
own profession, for there are poets little enough 
to envy even a poet-laureat. " Mason was will- 
ing^^— 

^^^-^^udyard Kipling had the double qualification 
of poetic genius and of convinced Imperialism. 
He had received a formal accolade from the aged 
Tennyson, and could have carried on the tradi- 
tion of British verse and British arms. Nor has 
any Laureate, in the history of the office, risen 
more magnificently to an occasion than did Mr. 
Kipling _at the sixtieth anniversary of the reign 
of the Queen. Each poet made his little speech in 
verse, and then at the close of the ceremony, came 
the thrilling Recessional, which received as in- 
stant applause from the world as if it had been 
spoken to an audience. In its scriptural phrase- 
ology, in its combination of haughty pride and 
deep contrition, in its ''holy hope and high humil- 
ity," it expressed with austere majesty the genius 
of the English race. The soul of a great poet en- 
tered immediately into the hearts of men, there to 
abide for ever. 

It is interesting to reflect that not the author 
of the Recessional, but the author of Regina Cava 
was duly chosen for the Laureateship. This poem 
by Robert Bridges appeared on the same occa- 
sion as that immortalized by Kipling, and was 
subsequently included in the volume of the writ- 



30 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

er's poetical works, publislied in 1912. It shows 
irreproachable reverence for Queen Victoria. 
Apparently its poetical quality was satisfactory 
to those who appoint Laureates. 

REGINA CARA 

Jubilee-Song, for music, 1897 

Hark ! the world is full of thy praise, 
England's Queen of many days ; 
Who, knowing how to rule the free, 
Hast given a crown to monarchy. 

Honour, Truth, and growing Peace 
Follow Britannia's wide increase. 
And Nature yield her strength unknown 
To the wisdom bom beneath thy throne! 

In wisdom and love firm is thy fame : 
Enemies bow to revere thy name : 
The world shall never tire to tell 
Praise of the queen that reigned well. 

Felix anima, Domina praeclara, 
Amore semper coronabere 
Regina Cara. 

Rudyard Kipling's poetry is as familiar to us 
'as the air we breathe. He is the spokesman for 
the Anglo-Saxon breed. His gospel of orderly 
energy is the inspiration of thousands of business 
offices; his sententious maxims are parts of cur- 
rent speech: the viotrola has carried his singing 
lyrics even farther than the banjo penetrates, of 
which latter democratic instrument his wonderful 
poem is the apotheosis. And we have the word of 



RUDYARD KIPLINa 31 

a distinguished British major-general to prove 
that Mr. Kipling has wrought a miracle of trans- 
formation with Tommy Atkins. General Sir 
George Younghusband, in a recent book, A Sol- 
dier's Memories, says, *'I had never heard the 
words or expressions that Rudyard Kipling's sol- 
diers used. Many a time did I ask my brother 
officers whether they had ever heard them. No, 
never. But, sure enough, a few years after the 
soldiers thought, and talked, and expressed them- 
selves exactly as Rudyard Kipling had taught 
them in his stories. Rudyard Kipling made the 
modern soldier. Other writers have gone on with 
the good work, and they have between them manu- 
factured the cheery, devil-may-care, lovable per- 
son enshrined in our hearts as Thomas Atkins. 
Before he had learned from reading stories about 
himself that he, as an individual, also possessed 
the above attributes, he was mostly ignorant of 
the fact. My early recollections of the British 
soldier are of a bluff, rather surly person, never 
the least jocose or light-hearted except perhaps 
when he had too much beer." 

This is extraordinary testimony to the power 
of literature — from a first-class fighting man. It 
is as though John Sargent should paint an inac- 
curate but idealized portrait, and the original 
should make it accurate by imitation. The sol- 
diers were transformed by the renewing of their 
minds. Beholding with open face as in a glass a 
certain image, they were changed into the same 



32 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETEY 

image, by the spirit of the poet. This is certainly 
a greater achievement than correct reporting. It 
is quite possible, too, that the officers' attitude 
toward Tommy Atkins had been altered by the 
Barrack-Room. Ballads, and tliis new attitude pro- 
duced results in character. 

I give General Younghusband's testimony for 
what it is worth. It is important if true. But it 
is only fair to add that it has been contradicted 
by another military officer, who affirms tliat Kip- 
ling reported the soldier as he was. Readers may 
take their choice. At all events the transforma- 
tion of character by discipline, cleanliness, hard 
work, and danger is the ever-present moral in 
Mr. Kipling's verse. He loves to take the raw 
recruit or the boyish, self-conscious, awkward 
subaltern, and show how he may become an effi- 
cient man, happy in the happiness that accom- 
panies success. It is a Philistine goal, but one 
that has the advantage of being attainable. The 
reach of this particular poet seldom exceeds his 
grasp. And although thus far in his career — ^he 
is only fifty-two, and we may hope as well as re- 
member — ^his best poetry belongs to the nine- 
teenth century rather than the twentieth, so uni- 
versally popular a homily as If indicates that he 
has by no means lost the power of preaching in 
verse. With the exception of some sad lapses, his 
latter poems have come nearer the earlier level of 
production than his stories. For that matter, 
from the beginning I have thought that the genius 



KUDYARD KIPLING 33 

of Rudyard Kipling had more authentic expres- 
sion in poetry than in prose. I therefore hope 
that after the war he will become one of the 
leaders in the advance of English poetry in the 
twentieth century, as he will remain one of the 
imperishable monuments of Victorian literature. 
The verse published in his latest volume of stories, 
A Diversity of Creatures, 1917, has the stamp of 
his original mind, and Macdonough's Song is im- 
pressive. And in a poem which does not appear 
in this collection, but which was written at the 
outbreak of hostilities, Mr. Kipling was, I be- 
lieve, the first to use the name Hun — ^an appella- 
tion of considerable adhesive power. Do roses 
stick like burrs? 

His influence on other poets has of course been 
powerful. As Eden Phillpotts is to Thomas 
Hardy, so is Robert Service to Rudyard Kip- 
ling. Like Bret Harte in California, Mr. Service 
found gold in the Klondike. But it is not merely 
in his interpretation of the life of a distant coun- 
try that the new poet reminds one of his proto- 
type ; both in matter and in manner he may justly 
be called the Kipling of the North. His verse 
has an extraordinary popularity among Ameri- 
can college undergraduates, the reasons for which 
are evident. They read, discuss him, and quote 
him with joy, and he might well be proud of the 
adoration of so many of our eager, adventurous, 
high-hearted youth. Yet, while Mr. Service is un- 
doubtedly a real poet, his work as a whole seems 



34 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

a clear echo, rather than a new song. It is good, 
but it is reminiscent of his reading, not merely 
of Mr. Kipling, but of poetry in general. In The 
Land God Forgot, a fine poem, beginning 

The lonely sunsets flare forlorn 

Down valleys dreadly desolate; 

The lordly mountains soar in scorn 

As still as death, as stem as fate, 

the opening line infallibly brings to mind Hen- 
ley's 

Where forlorn sunsets flare and fade. 

The poetry of Mr. Service has the merits and 
the faults of the ''red blood" school in fiction, il- 
lustrated by the late Jack London and the lively 
Rex Beach. It is not the highest form of art. It 
insists on being heard, but it smells of mortality. 
You cannot give permanence to a book by print- 
ing it in italic type. 

• It is indeed difficult to express in pure artistic 
form great primitive experiences, even with long 
years of intimate first-hand knowledge. No one 
doubts Mr. Servicers accuracy or sincerity. But 
many men have had abundance of material, rich 
and new, only to find it unmanageable. Bret 
Harte, Mark Twain, Rudyard Kipling succeeded 
where thousands have failed. Think of the possi- 
bilities of Australia! And from that vast region 
only one great artist has spoken — Percy Grainger. 



CHAPTER II 

PHILLIPS, WATSON, NOTES, HOUSMAN 

Stephen Phillips — his immediate success — influence of Strat- 
ford-on-Avon — his plays — a traditional poet — his realism — 
William Watson — his unpromising start — his lament on the 
coldness of the age toward poetry — his Epigrams — Words- 
worth's Grave — his eminence as a critic in verse — his anti- 
imperialism — his Song of Hate — his Byronic wit — his con- 
tempt for the "new" poetry — Alfred Noyes — both literarj- and 
rhetorical — an orthodox poet — a singer — his democracy — his 
childlike imagination — his sea-poems — Drake — his optimism — 
his religious faith — A. E. Housman — his paganism and pes- 
simism — his modernity — his originality — his lyrical power — 
war poems — Ludlow. 

The genius of Stephen Phillips was immediately 
recognized by London critics. When the thin 
volume. Poems, containing Marpessa, Christ in 
Hades, and some lyrical pieces, appeared in 1897, 
it was greeted by a loud chorus of approval, cere- 
moniously ratified by the bestowal of the First 
Prize from the British Academy. Some of the 
more distinguished among his admirers asserted 
that the nobility, splendour, and beauty of his 
verse merited the adjective Miltonic. I remember 
that we Americans thought that the English critics 
had lost their heads, and we queried what they 
would say if we praised a new poet in the United 
States in any such fashion. But that was before 
we had seen the book; when we had once read 

35 



36 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

it for ourselves, we felt no alarm for the safety of 
Milton, but we knew that English Literature had 
been enriched. Stephen Phillips is among the 
English poets. 

His career extended over the space of twenty- 
five years, from the first publication of Marpessa 
in 1890 to his death on the ninth of December, 
1915. He was born near the city of Oxford, on the 
twenty-eighth of July, 1868. His father, the Rev. 
Dr. Stephen Phillips, still living, is Precentor of 
Peterborough Cathedral; his mother was related 
to Wordsworth. He was exposed to poetry germs 
at the age of eight, for in 1876 his father became 
Chaplain and Sub- Vicar at Stratford-on-Avon, 
and the boy attended the Granmiar School. Later 
he spent a year at Queens' College, Cambridge, 
enough to give him the right to be enrolled in the 
long list of Cambridge poets. He went on the 
stage as a member of Frank Benson's company, 
and in his time played many parts, receiving on 
one occasion a curtain call as the Ghost in Hamlet. 
This experience — with the early Stratford inspira- 
tion — probably fired liis ambition to become a 
dramatist. The late Sir George Alexander pro- 
duced Paolo and France sea; Herod was acted in 
London by Beerbohm Tree, and in America by 
William Faversham. Neither of these plays was 
a failure, but it is regrettable that he wrote for 
the stage at all. His genius was not adapted for 
drama, and the quality of his verse was not im- 
proved by the experiment, although all of his half- 



STEPHEN PHILLIPS 37 

dozen pieces have occasional passages of rare love- 
liness. His best play, Paolo and Francesca, suf- 
fers when compared either with Boker's or D'An- 
nunzio's treatment of the old story. It lacks the 
stage-craft of the former, and the virility of the 
latter. 

Phillips was no pioneer: he followed the great 
tradition of English poetry, and must be counted 
among the legitimate heirs. At his best, he re- 
sembles Keats most of all; and none but a real 
poet could ever make us think of Keats. If he 
be condemned for not breaking new paths, we 
may remember the words of a wise man — '*It is 
easier to differ from the great poets than it is to 
resemble them." He loved to employ the stand- 
ard five-foot measure that has done so much of 
the best work of English poetry. In The Woman 
with the Dead Soul, he showed once more the 
musical possibilities latent in the heroic couplet, 
which Pope had used with such monotonous bril- 
liance. In Marpessa, he gave us blank verse of 
noble artistry. But he was far more than a mere 
technician. He fairly meets the test set by John 
Davidson. * ' In the poet the whole assembly of his 
being is harmonious ; no organ is master ; a diapa- 
son extends throughout the entire scale ; his whole 
body, his whole soul is rapt into the making of 
his poetry. . . . Poetry is the product of original- 
ity, of a first-hand experience and observation of 
life, of a direct communion with men and women, 
with the seasons of the year, with day and night. 



38 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

The critic will tliorefore be well-advised, if he 
have the good fortune to find something that seems 
to him poetry, to lay it out in the daylight and the 
moonlight, to take it into the street and the fields, 
to set against it his own experience and observa- 
tion of life. ' ' 

One of the most severe tests of poetry that I 
know of is to read it aloud on the shore of an 
angry sea. Homer, Shakespeare, Milton gain in 
splendour with this accompaniment. 

With the words of John Davidson in mind, let 
us take two passages from Marpcssa, and measure 
one against the atmosphere of day and night, and 
the other against homely human experience. Al- 
though Mr. Davidson was not thinking of Phillips, 
I believe he would have admitted the validity of 
this verse. 

From the dark 
The floating: smell of flowers invisible, 
The mystic yearning of the garden wet, 
The moonless-passing night — into his brain 
Wandered, luitil he rose and outward leaned 
In the dim summer; 'twas the moment deep 
When we are conscious of tlie secret dawn, 
Amid the darkness that we feel is grwn. . . , 
When tlie long day that glideth without cloud, 
The summer day, was at her deep blue hour 
Of lilies musical with busy bliss, 
Whose very light trembled as with excess, 
And heat was frail, and every bush and flower 
Was drooping in the glory overcome ; 

Any poet knows how to speak in authentic tones 
of the wild passion of insurgent hearts; but not 



STEPHEN PHILLIPS 39 

every poet possesses the rarer gift of setting the 
mellower years to harmonious music, as in the 
following gracious words : 

But if I live with Idas, then we two 

On the low earth shall prosper hand in hand 

In odours of the open field, and live 

In peaceful noises of the farm, and watch 

The pastoral fields burned by the setting sun. . . . 

And though tlie first sweet sting of love be past, 

The sweet that almost venom is; though youth, 

With tender and extravagant delight. 

The first and secret kiss by twilight hedge, 

The insane fiirewell repeated o'er and o'er, 

Pass off; there shall succeed a faithful peace; 

Beautiful friendship tried by sun and wind. 

Durable from the daily dust of life. 

And though with sadder, still with kinder eyes, 

We shall behold all frailties, we shall haste 

To pardon, and with mellowing minds to bless. 

Then though we must grow old, we shall grow old 

Together, and he shall not greatly miss 

My bloom faded, and waning light of eyes. 

Too deeply gazed in ever to seem dim; 

Nor shall we murmur at, nor much regret 

The years that gently bend us to the ground. 

And gradually incline our face; that we 

Leisurely stooping, and with each slow step, 

May curiously inspect our lasting home. 

But we shall sit with luminous holy smiles. 

Endeared by many griefs, by many a jest. 

And custom sweet of living side by side; 

And full of memories not unkindly glance 

Upon each other. Last, we shall descend 

Into the natural ground — not without tears — 

One must go first, ah God ! one must go first ; 

After so long one blow for both were good; 

Still like old friends, glad to have met, and leave 

Behind a wholesome memory on the earth. 



40 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

Although Marpessa and Christ in Hades are 
subjects naturally adapted for poetic treatment, 
Phillips did not hesitate to try his art on material 
less malleable. In some of his poems we find a 
realism as honest and clear-sighted as that of 
Crabbe or Masefield. In The Woman with the. 
Dead Soul and The Wife we have naturalism ele- 
vated into poetry. He could make a London night 
as mystical as a moonlit meadow. And in a brief 
couplet he has given to one of the most familiar 
of metropolitan spectacles a pretty touch of im- 
agination. The traffic policeman becomes a musi- 
cian. 

The constable with lifted hand 
Conducting the orchestral Strand. 

Stephen Phillips's second volume of collected 
verse, New Poems (1907), came ten years after 
the first, and was to me an agreeable surprise. 
His devotion to the drama made me fear that he 
had burned himself out in the Poems of 1897 ; but 
the later book is as unmistakably the work of a 
poet as was the earlier. The mystical communion 
with nature is expressed with authority in such 
poems as After Rain, Thoughts at Sunrise, 
Thoughts at Noon. Indeed the first-named dis- 
tinctly harks back to that transcendental mystic 
of the seventeenth century, Henry Vaughan. The 
greatest triumph in the whole volume comes where 
we should least expect it, in the eulogy on Glad- 
stone. Even the most sure-footed bards often 
miss their path in the Dark Valley. Yet in these 



PHILLIPS, WATSON 41 

seven stanzas on the Old Parliamentary Hand 
there is not a single weak line, not a single false 
note ; word placed on word grows steadily into a 
column of majestic beauty. 

This poem is all the more refreshing because 
admiration for Gladstone had become unfashion- 
able ; his work was belittled, his motives befouled, 
his clear mentality discounted by thousands of 
pygmy politicians and journalistic gnats. The 
poet, with a poet's love for mountains, turns the 
powerful light of his genius on the old giant; the 
mists disappear; and we see again a form vener- 
able and august. 

The saint and poet dwell apart; but thou 
Wast holy in the furious press of men, 
And choral in the central rush of life. 
Yet didst thou love old branches and a book, 
And Roman verses on an English lawn. . . . 

Yet not for all thy breathing charm remote, 

Nor breach tremendous in the forts of Hell, 

Not for these things we praise thee, though these things 

Are much; but more, because thou didst discern 

In temporal policy the eternal will; 

Thou gav'st to party strife the epic note. 
And to debate the thunder of the Lord ; 
To meanest issues fire of the Most High. 

William Watson, a Yorkshireman by birth and 
ancestry, was born on the second of August, 1858. 
His first volume. The Prince's Quest, appeared in 
1880. Seldom has a true poet made a more un- 
promising start, or given so little indication, not 



42 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

only of the flame of genius, but of the power of 
thought. No twentieth century English poet has 
a stronger personality than William Watson. 
There is not the slightest tang of it in The Prince's 
Quest. This long, rambling romance, in ten sec- 
tions, is as devoid of flavour as a five-finger ex- 
ercise. It is more than objective; it is somnam- 
bulistic. It contains hardly any notable lines, and 
hardly any bad lines. Although quite dull, it 
never deviates into prose — it is always somehow 
poetical without ever becoming poetry. It is writ- 
ten in the heroic couplet, written with a fatal 
fluency; not good enough and not bad enough to 
be interesting. It is like the student's theme, 
which was returned to him without corrections, yet 
with a low mark ; and in reply to the student 's re- 
sentful question, ''Why did you not correct my 
faults, if you thought meanly of my work?" the 
teacher replied wearily, "Your theme has no 
faults; it is distinguished by a lack of merit." 

In The Prince's Quest Mr. Watson exhibited a 
rather remarkable command of a barren technique. 
He had neither thoughts that breathe, nor words 
that bum. He had one or two unusual words — 
his only indication of immaturity in style — like 
''wox" and "himseemed." (Why is it that 
when ''herseemed" as used by Rossetti, is so beau- 
tiful, ' ' himseemed ' ' should be so irritating ? ) But 
aside from a few specimens, the poem is as free 
from affectations as it is from passion. When 
we remember the faults and the splendours of 



WILLIAM WATSON 43 

Pauline, it seems incredible that a young poet 
could write so many pages without stumbling and 
without soaring; that he could produce a finished 
work of mediocrity. I suppose that those who 
read the poem in 1880 felt quite sure that its 
author would never scale the heights; and they 
were wrong; because William Watson really has 
the divine gift, and is one of the most deservedly 
eminent among living poets. 

It is only fair to add, that in the edition of his 
works in 1898, The Prince's Quest did not appear; 
he was persuaded, however, to include it in the 
two-volume edition of 1905, where it enjoys con- 
siderable revision, "wox" becoming normal, and 
"himseemed" becoming dissyllabic. For my 
part, I am glad that it has now been definitely 
retained. It is important in the study of a poet's 
development. It would seem that the William 
Watson of the last twenty-five years, a fiery, eager, 
sensitive man, with a burning passion to express 
himself on moral and political ideas, learned the 
mastery of his art before he had anything to say. 

Perhaps, being a thoroughly honest craftsman, 
he felt that he ought to keep his thoughts to him- 
self, until he knew how to express them. After 
proving it on an impersonal romance, he was then 
ready to speak his mind. No poet has spoken 
his mind more plainly. 

In an interesting address, delivered in various 
cities in the United States, and published in 1913, 
called The Poet's Place in .the Scheme of Life, 



44 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETEY 

Mr. Watson said^ "Since my arrival on these 
shores I have been told that here also the public 
interest in poetry is visibly on the wane. ' ' Now 
whoever told him that was mistaken. The public 
interest in poetry and in poets has visibly ivox, 
to use Mr. Watson's word. It is always true that 
an original genius, like Browning, like Ibsen, like 
Wagner, must wait some time for public recog- 
nition, although these three all lived long enough 
to receive not only appreciation, but idolatry ; but 
the ''reading public" has no difficulty in recogniz- 
ing immediately first-rate Avork, when it is pro- 
duced in the familiar forms of art. In the Preface 
that preceded his printed lecture, Mr. Watson com- 
plained with some natural resentment, though with 
no petulance, that his poem. King Alfred, starred 
as it was from the old armories of literature, re- 
ceived scarcely any critical comment, and attracted 
no attention. But the reason is plain enough — 
King Alfred, as a w^hole, is a dull poem, and is 
therefore not provocative of eager discussion. 
The critics and the public rose in reverence be- 
fore Wordsivorfh's Grare, because it is a noble 
work of art. Its author did not have to tell us of 
its beauty — it was as clear as a cathedral. 

I do not agree with Mr. Watson or with Mr. 
Mackaye, that real poets are speaking to deaf ears, 
or that they should be stimulated by forced at- 
tention. I once heard Percy Mackaye make an 
eloquent and high-minded address, where, if my 
memory serves me rightly, he advocated some- 



WILLIAM WATSON 45 

tiling like a stipend for young poets. A distin- 
guished old man in the audience, now with God, 
whispered audibly, ''What most of them need is 
hanging!" I do not think they should be re- 
warded either by cash or the gallows. Let them 
make their way, and if they have genius, the 
public will find it out. If all they have is talent, 
and no means to support it, poetry had better 
become their avocation. 

Mr. Watson has expressly disclaimed that in 
his lecture he was lamenting merely "the insuffi- 
cient praise bestowed upon living poets." It is 
certainly true that most poets cannot live by the 
sale of their works. Is this especially the fault 
of our age? is it the fault of our poets? is it a 
fault in human nature? Mr. Watson said, "Yet 
I am bound to admit that this need for the poet is 
felt by but few persons in our day. With one ex- 
ception there is not a single living English poet, 
the sales of whose poems would not have been 
thought contemptible by Scott and Byron. The 
exception is^ of course, that apostle of British im- 
perialism — that vehement and voluble glorifier of 
Britannic ideals, whom I dare say you will read- 
ily identify from my brief, and, I hope, not dis- 
paraging description of him. With that one bril- 
liant and salient exception, England's living sing- 
ers succeed in reaching only a pitifully small audi- 
ence." In commenting on this passage, we ought 
to remember that Scott and Byron were colossal 
figures, so big that no eye could miss them; and 



46 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

that the reason why Kipling has enjoyed sub- 
stantial rewards is not because of his political 
views, nor because of his glorification of the Brit- 
ish Empire, but simply because of his literary 
genius. He is a brilliant and salient exception to 
the common run of poets, not merely in royalties, 
but in creative power. Furthermore, shortly 
after this lecture was delivered, Alfred Noyes and 
then John Masefield passed from city to city in 
America in a march of triumph. Mr. Gibson and 
Mr. De La Mare received homage everywhere; 
"Riley day" is now a legal holiday in Indiana; 
Rupert Brooke has been canonized. 

Mr. Watson is surely mistaken when he offers 
''his poetical contemporaries in England" his 
"most sincere condolences on the hard fate which 
condemned them to be born there at all in the lat- 
ter part of the nineteenth century." But he is 
not mistaken in wishing that more people every- 
where were appreciative of true poetry. I wish 
this with all my heart, not so much for the poet^s 
sake, as for that of the people. But the chosen 
spirits are not rarer in our time than formerly. 
The fault is in human nature. Material blessings 
are instantly appreciated by every man, woman, 
and child, and by all the animals. For one person 
who knows the joys of listening to music, or look- 
ing at pictures, or reading poetry, there are a 
hundred thousand who know only the joys of food, 
clothing, shelter. Spiritual delights are not so 
immediately apparent as the gratification of phys- 



WILLIAM WATSON 47 

ical desires. Perhaps if they were, man's growth 
would stop. As Browning says, 

While were it so ■with the soul, — this gift of truth 
Once grasped, were this our soul's gain safe, and sure 
To prosper as the body's gain is wont, — 
Why, man's probation would conclude, his earth 
Crumble; for he both reasons and decides, 
Weighs first, then chooses: will he give up fire 
For gold or purple once he knows its worth? 
Could he give Christ up were his worth as plain? 
Therefore, I say, to test man, the proofs shift. 
Nor may he grasp that fact like other fact. 
And straightway in his life acknowledge it. 
As, say, the indubitable bliss of fire. 

One of the functions of the poet is to awaken 
men and women to the knowledge of the delights 
of the mind, to give them life instead of exist-; 
ence. As Mr. Watson nobly expresses it, the aim 
of the poet ''is to keep fresh within us our often 
flagging sense of life's greatness and grandeur." 
We can exist on food ; but we cannot live without 
our poets, who lift us to higher planes of thought 
and feeling. The poetry of William Watson has 
done this service for us again and again. 

In 1884 appeared Epigrams of Art, Life, and 
Nature. 1 do not think these have been suffi- 
ciently admired. As an epigrammatist Mr. Wat- 
son has no rival in Victorian or in contemporary 
verse. The epigram is a quite definite form of 
art, especially cultivated by the poets in the first 
half of the seventeenth century. Their formula 
was the terse expression of obscene thoughts. 



48 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

Mr. Watson excels the best of them in wit, con- 
cision, and grace; it is needless to say he makes 
no attempt to rival them as a garbage-collector. 
Of the large number of epigrams that he has con- 
tributed to English literature, I find the majority 
not only interesting, but richly stimulating. This 
one ought to please Mr. H. Gr. Wells: 

When whelmed are altar, priest, and creed j 

When all the faiths have passed; 
Perhaps, from darkening incense freed, 

God may emerge at last. 

This one, despite its subject, is far above dog- 
gerel ; 

His friends he loved. His direst earthly foes — ( 
Cats — I believe he did but feign to hate. 

My hand will miss the insinuated nose, 

Mine eyes the tail that wagg'd contempt at fate. 

But his best epigrams are on purely literary 
themes : 

Your Marlowe's page I close, my Shakespeare's ope. 

How welcome — after gong and cymbal's din — 
The continuity, the long slow slope 

And vast curves of the gradual violin! 

With the publication in 1890 of his masterpiece, 
Wordsworth's Grave, William Watson came into 
his own. This is worthy of the man it honours, 
and what higher praise could be given? It is 
superior, both in penetration and in beauty, to 
Matthew Arnold's famous Memorial Verses. In- 
deed, in the art of writing subtle literary criticism 



WILLIAM WATSON 49 

in rhythmical language that is itself high and pure 
poetry, Mr. Watson is unapproachable by any of 
his contemporaries, and I do not know of any 
poet in English literature who has surpassed him. 
This is his specialty, tliis is his clearest title to 
permanent fame. And although his criticism is 
so valuable, when employed on a sympathetic 
theme, that he must be ranked among our modern 
interpreters of literature, his style in expressing 
it could not possibly be translated into prose, sure 
test of its poetical greatness. In his Apologia, he 



I have full oft 
In singers' selves found me a theme of song, 
Holding these also to be very part 
Of Nature's greatness, and accounting not 
Their descants least heroical of deeds. 

The poem Wordsworth's Grave not only ex- 
presses, as no one else has expressed, the quality 
of Wordsworth's genius, but in single lines as- 
signed to each, the same service is done for Milton, 
Shakespeare, Shelley, Coleridge, and Byron. 
This is a matchless illustration of the kind of 
criticism that is in itself genius; for we may 
quarrel with Mr. Spingarn as much as we please 
on his general dogmatic principle of the identity 
of genius and taste; here we have so admirable 
an example of what he means by creative criticism, 
that it is a pity he did not think of it himself. 
'^For it still remains true," says Mr. Spingarn, 
'Hhat the aesthetic critic, in his moments of high- 



50 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

est power, rises to heights where he is at one with 
the creator whom he is interpreting. At that mo- 
ment criticism and 'creation' are one." 

All great poets have the power of noble indigna- 
tion, a divine wrath against wickedness in high 
places. The poets, like the prophets of old, pour 
out their irrepressible fury against what they be- 
lieve to be cruelty and oppression. Milton's mag- 
nificent Piedmont sonnet is a glorious roar of 
righteous rage ; and since his time the poets have 
ever been the spokesmen for the insulted and in- 
jured. Eobert Burns, more than most statesmen, 
helped to make the world safe for democracy. I 
do not know what humanity would do without its 
poets — they are the champions of the individual 
against the tyranny of power, the cruel selfish- 
ness of kings, and the artificial conventions of 
society. We may or may not agree with Mr. Wat- 
son's anti-imperialistic sentiments as expressed 
in the early days of our century; he himself, like 
most of us, has changed his mind on many sub- 
jects since the outbreak of the world-war, and 
unless he ceases to develop, will probably change 
it many times in the future. But whatever our 
opinions, we cannot help admiring lines like these, 
published in 1897 : 

HOW WEARY IS OUR HEART 

Of kings and courts; of kingly, coiirtly wa>'s 
In which the life of man is bought and sold; 
How weary is our heart these many days ! 



WILLIAM WATSON 51 

Of ceremonious embassies that hold 
Parley with Hell in fine and silken phrase, 
How weary is our heart these many days! 

Of wavering counsellors neither hot nor cold, 
Whom from His mouth God speweth, be it told 
How weary is our heart these many days! 

Yea, for the ravelled night is round the lands. 

And sick are we of all the imperial story. 

The tramp of Power, and its long trail of pain; 

The mighty brows in meanest arts grown hoary; 

The mighty hands, 

That in the dear, affronted name of Peace 

Bind down a people to be racked and slain; 

The emulous armies waxing without cease, 

All-puissant all in vain; 

The pacts and leagues to murder by delays. 

And the dumb throngs that on the deaf thrones gaze; 

The common loveless lust of territory; 

The lips that only babble of their mart, 

While to the night the shrieking hamlets blaze; 

The bought allegiance, and the purchased praise, 

False honour, and shameful glory; — 

Of all the evil whereof this is part. 

How weary is our heart. 

How weary is our heart these many days! 

Another poem I cite in full, not for its power 
and beauty, but as a curiosity. I do not think it 
has been remembered that in the New Poems of 
1909 Mr. Watson published a poem of Hate some 
years before the Teutonic hymn became famous. 
It is worth reading again, because it so exactly 
expresses the cold reserve of the Anglo-Saxon, in 
contrast with the sentimentality of the German. 
There is, of course, no indication that its author 
had Germany in mind. 



52 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

HATE 

(To certain foreign detractors) 

Sirs, if the truth must needs be told, 
We love not you that rail and scold; 
And. yet, my mastei-s, you may wait 
Till the Greek Calends for our hate. 

No spendthrifts of our hate are we; 
Our hate is used with husbandry. 
We hold our hate too choice a thing 
For light and careless lavishing. 

We cannot, dare not, make it cheap ! 
For holy \ises will we kee^) 
A thing so pure, a thing so gi'eat 
As Heaven's benignant gift of hate. 

Is there no ancient, sceptred Wrong? 
No torturing Power, endured too long'? 
Yea; and for these our hatred shall 
Be cloistered and kept virginal. 

He found occasion to draw from liis cold storage 
of hate much sooner than he had anticipated. Be- 
ing a convinced anti-imperialist, and having not 
a spark of antagonism to Germany, the early days 
of August, 1914, shocked no one in the world more 
than him. But after the first maze of bewilder- 
ment and horror, he drew his pen against the 
Kaiser in holy wrath. ^lost of his war poems 
have been collected in the little volume The Man 
Who Saw, published in the summer of 1917. He 
has now at all events one satisfaction, that of being 
in absolute harmony with the national sentiment. 
In his Preface, after commenting on the pain he 



WILLIAM WATSON 53 

had suffered in times past at finding himself in 
opposition to the majority of his countrymen, he 
manfully says, "During the present war, with all 
its agonies and horrors, he has had at any rate 
the one private satisfaction of feeling not even 
the most momentary doubt or misgiving as to 
the perfect righteousness of his country's cause. 
There is nothing on earth of which he is more cer- 
tain than that this Empire, throughout this su- 
preme ordeal, has shaped her course by the light 
of purest duty." The volume opens with a fine 
tribute to Mr. Lloyd George, "the man who 
saw," and The Kaiser's Dirge is a savage male- 
diction. The poems in this book— of decidedly 
unequal merit— have the fire of indignation if not 
always the flame of inspiration. Taken as a 
whole, they are more interesting psychologically 
than as a contribution to English verse. I sym- 
pathize with the author's feelings, and admire his 
sincerity; but his reputation as a poet is not 
heightened overmuch. Perhaps the best poem in 
the collection is The Yellow Pansy, accompanied 
with Shakespeare's line, "There's pansies— that 's 
for thoughts. ' ' 

Winter had swooped, a lean and hungry hawk; 

It seemed an age since summer was entombed; 
Yet in our garden, on its frozen stalk, 

A yellow pansy bloomed. 

'Twaa Nature saying by trope and metaphor: 
"Behold, when empire against empire strives, 

Though all else perish, ground 'neath iron war, 
The golden thought survives." 



I 



54 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY j 

Although, with the exception of his marriage j 
and travels in America, Mr. Watson's verse tells \ 
us little of the facts of his life, few poets have [ 
ever revealed more of the history of their mind, i 
What manner of man he is we know without wait- 
ing for the publication of his intimate correspond- \ 
ence. It is fortmiate for his temperament that, ] 
combined with an almost morbid sensitiveness, he < 
has something of Byron's power of hitting back. ; 
His numerous volumes contain many verses scor- 
ing off adverse critics, upon whom he exercises a ' 
sword of satire not always to be found among a ; 
poet's weapons; which exercise seems to give j 
him both relief and delight. Apart from these i 
thrusts edged with personal bitterness, William ] 
Watson possesses a rarely used vein of ironical ' 
wit that inunediately recalls Byron, who might ■ 
himself have written some of the stanzas in The J 
Eloping Angels. Faust requests Mephisto to pro- I 
cure for them both admission into heaven for half- I 
an-hour : 

To whom Mephisto: "Ah, you undeiTate 

The hazards and the dangers, my good Sir. 
Peter is stony as liis name; the gate. 

Excepting to in%'ited gi;ests, won't stir. 
'Tis long since he and I were intimate ; 

We differed; — but to bygones why refer? 
Still, there are windows; if a peep through these 
Would serve your turn, we'll start whene'er you please. . . 

So Faust and his companion entered, by 

The window, the abodes where seraphs dwell. 
"Already morning quickens in the sky. 

And soon will sound the heavenly matin bell; 



WILLIAM WATSON 55 

Our time is short," Mephisto said, "for I 

Have an. appointment about noon in hell. 
Dear, dear! why, heaven has hardly changed one bit 
Since the old days before the historic split." 

The excellent conventional technique displayed 
in The Prince's Quest has characterized nearly 
every page of Mr. Watson's works. He is not 
only content to walk in the ways of traditional 
poesy, he glories in it. He has a contempt for 
heretics and experimenters, which he has ex- 
pressed frequently not only in prose, but in verse. 
It is natural that he should worship Tennyson; 
natural (and unfortunate for him) that he can see 
little in Browning. And if he is blind to Brown- 
ing, what he thinks of contemporary *'new" poets 
may easily be imagined. With or without inspira- 
tion, he believes that hard work is necessary, and 
that good workmanship ought to be rated more 
highly. This idea has become an obsession; Mr. 
Watson writes too much about the sweat of his 
brow, and vents his spleen on ''modem" poets too 
often. In his latest volume. Retrogression, pub- 
lished in 1917, thirty-two of the fifty-two poems 
are devoted to the defence of standards of poetic 
art and of purity of speech. They are all inter- 
esting and contain some truth; but if the ''new" 
poetry and the ' ' new ' ' criticism are really balder- 
dash, they should not require so much attention 
from one of the most eminent of contemporary 
writers. I think Mr. Watson is rather stiff- 
necked and obstinate, like an honest, hearty coun- 



r)(> AinANcM-: ok kxi^i.isii roi-vrm' 

try siniiro, in his sturdy liWUnviui;- o( trmlituui. 
Smooth tooliuu|uo is a tiiu> lluwix in art ; hut 1 do 
not onro whothor n pooni is Nvrittou in c'i>uvontionnl 
niotro or in t'roo v<m"so, so louix as it is numistnk- 
ably [)ootry. And no g'arniouls yiM iuvoutoil or 
tho laok of tluMU i-au oonooal truo juuMry. l\M'iiaps 
tho Trailitioualist luiuht ri>ply that uuiuspiriHl 
vorso ii'rai'ol'ully writtiMi is hottor than uuiuspirod 
vorso nboniiuably writtiMi. So it is; but wliy 
bother about oithor? llo niiulit oiu'o nioro insist 
tliat inspired [>i>otry u-raool'ully written is bettor 
than inspired pocMry uu,i;rae<M"ully writtiMi. And 
I shonUl reply that it di^pended altoi^ether in\ tiu^ 
subjeet. 1 slionUl \\o\ like to sih^ Whitman's 
Spirit that formed this Scene turned into a Sjum- 
sovian stanza. I cannot t'ori^vt that Oavid MaUet 
tried to smootheu Uamh^t's solihnpiy by jannning 
it into the heroie eonpKM. Mr. Watson tliinks that 
the u'reat John Ponne is dead. On the contrary, 
he is audibly alive: and the mdy time he really ap- 
proached dissolution was wben Tope "versitied" 
him. 

Stephen riiillips, William Watson. Alfred 
Noyos — each published his lirst x'olunu^ oi' poems 
at the ae,-e oi' twenty two. aiKlilimial evidence o[' 
the old truth that pot^s ai-e lun-u. uo{ made. W- 
fred Xoyes is a StatTm-ilshire man. though his re- 
port of the county differs from that o\' Arnold 
Bennett as [unMry tlitVers frtnn pri^si\ 'I'hey did 
not see the same things in Statl\M'dshiri\ and if 
tliev luul. thev wi>uld not ha\i^ beiMi the same 



AhFliVA) NOYKS 57 

Uiiri^H, ;inyhow. Mr. Noy<;H wuh fjorn <>u \.\i<: kIx- 
U:(:u\.\i of S<!f*lf;rrihf;r, 1880, and made fj/H fifHt <\(t- 
fjart-Uff; frorn liif; iradilioriH of l<>n^HiHlj poftiry in 
^^oin;.' lo Oxford. Tli'tro hf; waH nn (;xcf;l)<;nf, illwH- 
iralJon of nu'/nn nmui i/n corporc, homo, wrilinp^ 
vrirKfiK and rowing on \\'\H colJo^c crow. 11'; in mar- 
ried to an Amrtrican wife, in a profcKHor at \*r\ncj;- 
l.on, and underhtandH Ihe Hpirit of America hcUcp 
than moHt viKitorH who write clever hookH about 
UH. lie haH the whr>leHome,, modcHt, cheerful tem- 
f)er;i,mrtnl (A' the Ameriejiri colle|<e underg-raduate, 
and tlie. Princeton HtufJentH are fortufjate, not only 
in hearing hin lecturcH, hut in the opfjortunity of 
ff;llowHhip with Huch a man. 

Mr. XoycH iH one of the few poetH who can read 
fiin own verncH effectively, the rcaHon hciri^ that 
liJH mind is hy nature both literary and rhetorical 
— a rare union. The purely literary temperament 
i'ri UHually marked by a certain HhyncHH which un- 
fitH itH owner for the public platform. J have 
heard \K)cXh rend paHHionate poetry in a muffled 
hin^-Hon^, Komething like a child learning to "re- 
cite." The works of Alfred NoycH gain diHtinctly 
by hiH oral interpretation of them. 

He iH prolific. Although ntill a young man, he 
haH a long lint of bookH to bin credit; and it i« 
rather Hurprising that in HUch a profuHion of liter- 
ary cxperinientH, the general level nhould be ho 
high. Jfe writcH blank verne, octonyllabicH, terza- 
rima, HonnetH, and in particularly fond of long 
rolling lincH that have in them the munic of the 



58 ADVANCE OF ENGLISU TOETKY 

sea. Ilis ideas require no enlargement of the 
orchestra, and he generally avoids by-paths, or 
unbeaten tracks, content to go lustily singing 
along the highway. Perhaps it shows more cour- 
age to compete with standard poets in standard 
measures, than to elude dangerous comparisons 
by making or adopting a new fashion. Mr. Noyes 
openly challenges the masters on their owni iield 
and with their own weapons. Yet he shows noth- 
ing of the schoolmasterish contempt for the 
"new" poetry so characteristic of Mr. "Watson. 
He actually admires Blake, who was in spirit a 
twentieth century poet, and he has written a tine 
poem On the Death of Francis Thompson, though 
he has nothing of Thompson in him except reli- 
gious faith. 

In the time-worn but useful classitication of 
versemakers under the labels Vates and Pacta, 
Alfred Noyes belongs clearly to the latter group. 
He is not without ideas, but he is primarily an 
artist, a singer. He is one of the most melodious 
of modern writers, with a witchery in words that 
at its best is irresistible. He has an extraordi- 
nary command of the resources of langiiage and 
rhythm. Were this all he possessed, he would be 
nothing but a graceful musician. But he has the 
imagination of the inspired poet, giving him crea- 
tive power to reveal anew the majesty of the un- 
tamed sea. and the mystery of the stars. With 
this clairvoyance — essential in poetry — he has 



ALFRED NOYES 59 

a hearty, charming, uncondescending^ sympathy 
with ** common" pcopJe, common flowers, common 
music. One of his most original and most cap- 
tivating poems is The Tramp Transfigured, an 
Episode in the Life of a Corn-flower Millionaire. 
This contains a character worthy of Dickens, a 
faery touch of fantasy, a rippling, singing melody, 
with delightful audacities of rime. 

Tick, tack, tick, tack, I couldn't wait no longer! 
Up I gets and bows polite; and pleasant as a trjflf — 
"Artemoon," I Kays, "I'm gla/1 your boots are going stronger; 
Only thing I'm drfja/ling is your fViet 'ull both &jme off." 
Tick, tack, tick, tack, she didn't sU^p to answer, ' 
"Art<,'moon," she says, and sort o' chokfiS a little cough, 
"I must get to Piddinghoe tomorrow if I can, sir !" 
"Demme, my good woman! Haw! Don't think I mean to 

loff," 
Says I, like a toff, 
"Where d'you mean to sleep tonight? God made this grass 

for go'ff." 

His masterpiece, The Barrel-Organ, has some- 
thing of Kipling's rollicking music, with less noise 
and more refinement. Out of the mechanical 
grinding of the hand organ, with the accompani- 
ment of city omnibuses, we get the very breath of 
spring in almost intolerable sweetness. This 
poem affects the head, the heart, and the feet. I 
defy any man or woman to read it without sur- 
rendering to the magic of the lilacs, the magic of 
old memories, the magic of the poet. Nor has 
any one ever read this poem without going imme- 



60 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

diately back to the first line, and reading it all over 
again, so susceptible are we to the romantic pleas- 
ure of melancholy. 

Mon eoeur est un lutli suspendu: 
Sitot qu'on le touche, il resonne. 

Alfred Noyes understands the heart of the 
child; as is proved by his Flower of Old Japan, 
and Forest of Wild Thyme, a kind of singing Al- 
ice-in-Wonderland. These are the veritable stuff 
of dreams — wholly apart from the law of causa- 
tion — one vision fading into another. It is our 
fault, and not that of the poet, that Mr. Noyes 
had to explain them: *'It is no new wisdom to 
regard these things through the eyes of little chil- 
dren; and I know — however insignificant they 
may be to others — these two tales contain as deep 
and true things as I, personally, have the power 
to express. I hope, therefore, that I may be 
pardoned, in these hurried days, for pointing out 
that the two poems are not to be taken merely 
as fairy-tales, but as an attempt to follow the 
careless and happy feet of children back into 
the kingdom of those dreams which, as we said 
above, are the sole reality worth living and dy- 
ing for; those beautiful dreams, or those fantas- 
tic jests — if any care to call them so — for which 
mankind has endured so many triumphant mar- 
tyrdoms that even amidst the rush and roar of 
modern materialism they cannot be quite forgot- 
ten. ' ' Mr. William J. Locke says he would rather 



ALFRED NOYES 61 

give up clean linen and tobacco than give up his 
dreams. 

Nearly all English poetry smells of the sea ; the 
waves rule Britannia. Alfred Noyes loves the 
ocean, and loves the old sea-dogs of Devonshire. 
He is not a literary poet, like William Watson, and 
has seldom given indication of possessing the in- 
sight or the interpretative power of his contem- 
porary in dealing with pure literature. He has 
the blessed gift of admiration, and his poems on 
Swinburne, Meredith, and other masters show a 
high reverence ; but they are without subtlety, and 
lack the discriminating phrase. He is, however, 
deeply read in Elizabethan verse and -prose, as 
his Tales of the Mermaid Tavern, one of his long- 
est, most painstaking, and least successful works, 
proves ; and of all the Elizabethan men of action, 
Drake is his hero. The English lovers of the sea, 
and the German lovers of efficiency, have both done 
honour to Drake. I remember years ago, being 
in the town of Offenburg in Germany, and seeing 
at a distance a colossal statue, feeling some sur- 
prise when I discovered that the monument was 
erected to Sir Francis Drake, ''in recognition of 
his having introduced the potato into Europe." 
Here was where eulogy became almost too specific, 
and I felt that their Drake was not my Drake. 

Mr. Noyes called Drake, published in 1908, an 
English Epic. It is not really an epic — it is a 
historical romance in verse, as Aurora Leigh is a 
novel. It is interesting from beginning to end, 



62 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

more interesting as narrative than as poetry. It 
is big rather than great, rhetorical rather than 
literary, declamatory rather than passionate. 
And while many descriptive passages are fine, the 
pictures of the terrible storm near Cape Horn are 
surely less vivid than those in Dauber. Had Mr, 
Noyes written Drake without the songs, and writ- 
ten nothing else, I should not feel certain that he 
was a poet; I should regard him as an extremely 
fluent versifier, mth remarkable skill in telling a 
rattling good story. But the Songs, especially the 
one beginning, ^'Now the purple night is past," 
could have been written only by a poet. In Forty 
Singing Seamen there is displayed an imagination 
quite superior to anything in Drake; and I would 
not trade The Admiral's Ghost for the whole 
"epic." 

As a specific illustration of his lyrical power, 
the following poem may be cited. 

THE MAY-TREE 

The May-tree on the hill 

Stands in the night 
So fragrant and so still, 

So dusky white. 

That, stealing from the wood, 

In that sweet air, 
You'd think Diana stood 

Before you there. 

If it be so, her bloom 

Trembles with bliss. 
She waits across the gloom 

Her shepherd's kiss. 



ALFRED NOYES 63 

Touch her. A bird will start 

From those pure snows, — 
The dark and fluttering heart 

Endymion knows. 

Alfred Noyes is ''among the English poets." 
His position is secure. But because he has never 
identified himself with the ''new" poetry — either 
in choice of material or in free verse and poly- 
phonic prose — it would be a mistake to suppose 
that he is afraid to make metrical experiments. 
The fact of the matter is, that after he had mas- 
tered the technique of conventional rime and 
rhythm, as sho^vn in many of his lyrical pieces, he 
began playing new tunes on the old instrument. 
In The Tramp Transfigured, to which I find my- 
self always returning in a consideration of his 
work, because it displays some of the highest 
qualities of pure poetry, there are new metrical 
effects. The same is true of the Prelude to the 
Forest of Wild Thyme, and of The Burial of a 
Queen; there are new metres used in Rank and 
File and in Mount Ida. The poem Astrid, in- 
cluded in the volume The Lord of Misrule (1915), 
is an experiment in initial rhymes. Try reading 
it aloud. 

White-armed Astrid, — ah, but she was beautiful! — 

Nightly wandered weeping thro' the ferns in the moon, 

Slowly, weaving her strange garland in the forest, 

Crowned with white violets, 

Gowned in green. 

Holy was that glen where she glided. 

Making her wild garland as Merlin had bidden her, 



64 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

Broakiuir otT tho milk-white horns of the honeysnoklo. 
Swoetlv dripped the new upon her small white 
Feet. ■ 

The Kiii'"lish national poolry of Mr. Noyos 
worthily expresses the spirit of the British people, 
and indeed of the Aniilo-Saxon race. AVe are no 
lovers of war; military ambition or the i^floiy of 
conquest is not sntlieient motive to call either 
Great Britain or America to arms; but if the j^-un- 
drunken Germans reallj- believed that the Englisli 
and Americans would not tight to save the world 
from an unspeakable despotism, they made the 
mistake of their lives. There nmst be a Cause, 
there nmst be an Idea, to draw out the full tight ing 
strength of the Angrlo-Saxons. Alfred Noyes 
made a correct diagniosis and a correct prophecy 
in 1911, when he published 77/(' Sword of Etifjland. 

She sheds no blood to that vain j^od of strife 

Whom tyrants eall **reiunvn": 
She knows that only they wlu> reverence life 

Can nobly lay it down ; 

And tliese will ride fivm ohild and home and love, 

Throui^h death and hell that day ; 
But 0, her faith, her Hair, must burTi above, 

ller soul must lead the way! 

I think none the worse of the mental force ex- 
hibited in the poetry of Alfred Noyes because he 
is an optimist. It is a common error to suppose 
that cheerfulness is a sign of a superficial mind, 
and melancholy the mark of deep thinking. Pes- 
simism in itself is no proof of intellectual great- 



NOYES, IIOUSMAN 65 

ncss. Every honest man must report the world 
as he sees it, both in its external manifestations 
and in the equally salient fact of human emotion. 
Mr. Noycs has always loved life, and rejoiced in it; 
ho lovcH the beauty of the world and beli(;ves that 
liiHiory proves progress. In an unashamed testi- 
mony to the happiness of living he is simply tell- 
ing truths of his own expcFience. Happiness is 
not necessarily thoughtlessness; many men and 
women have gone through p(!ssimism and come 
out on serener heights. 

Alfred Noyes i)roves, as Browning proved, that 
it is possible to be an inspired poet afld in every 
other respect to remain normal. lie is healthy- 
minded, without a trace of affectation or deca- 
dent*, lie follows the Tennysonian tradition in 
H(!eiiig that " P)eauty, Oood, and Knowledge are 
tliree sisters." He is religious. A cleaf-headed, 
pure-hearted Englishman is Alfred Noyes. 

Although A Shropshire Lad was published in 
180G, there is nothing of the nineteenth century in 
it excei)t th(! date, and nothing Victorian except 
llie allusions to the Queen. A double puzzle con- 
fronts the reader: how could a University Profes- 
sor of Latin write this kind of poetry, and how, 
after having published it, could he refrain from 
writing more? Since the date of its appearance, 
he has published an edition of Manilius, Book T, 
follow(ul nine years later by Book II; also an edi- 
tion of Juvenal, and many papers representing the 
result of original research. Possibly 



(U) ADVANCE OF ENGLISH TOETRY 

Chill Podiuitry roprossod his iioblo rnpfo, 
And froze the fjoninl curront of liis soul. 

Alfred l*i(l\vnrtl lloiisinjin was boni on llio 
lAvoiity-sixth of Mnrch, 185!), was tifratUialcHl rroiii 
Oxford, was ProtVssor of Latin at Univorsity Col- 
l(\i>v, Ijondou, from 1S92 to 1911, and since thou 
has been 1'rofessor i)f Latin at (^anibridi>v. Few 
l)0(^ls have made a diH^i>er impression on the lilera- 
(nr(^ o\' tlie time than he; and liie sixty-three short 
lyrics in one small volnme form a slender wodpfo 
for so powerfnl an im})act. This poetry, except in 
linislunl workmanshi}), folhnvs no Kn.nlish tradi- 
tion; it is as nnorthodox as Sannu^l Untler; 
it is thorouiihly "modern" in tone, in tem]>er, 
and in emphasis. Although entirely ori,j;inal, it 
reminds one in many ways of the verse of Thomas 
Hardy. It has his pag-anism, his pessimism, his 
human sympathy, his austere ])ride in the tragedy 
of frnstratimi, his cnrt refnsal to pipe n merry 
tnne, to make one o\' a holiday crowd. 

Thoroforo. since the world has still 
Mnch pfood, but nmch loss }::ooil thiui ill, 
And whilo the sun and incH>n onduro 
liUi'k's a chanoo, but trouble's sure, 
I'd face it as a wise man Avoidd, 
And train for ill and not for sjood. 
'Tis true, llie stiitT T brinsx for sale 
Is not so brisk a bri>\v as ale : 
Out of a sten\ that scored the hand 
1 wrunjx it in a weary land. 
But take it : if the smack is sour, 
Tl'.e better for tlie embittered hour; 



A. E. IIOUSMAN 67 

It should do pood to licart and li(!ad 
Wlicn your kouI is in my soul's stead; 
And I will friend you, if." I may, 
In the dark and cloudy day. 

Tliosc lines might have been written by Tliomas 
J lardy. They express not merely his view of life, 
but his faith in the healing power of the bitter herb 
of pessimism. But we should remember that A 
Shropshire Lad was published before the first 
volume of Mr. Hardy's verse appeared, and that 
the lyrical (^leirioiit displayed is natural rather 
than accjuired. 

Though at the time of its publication the author 
was thirty-six years old, many of the poems must 
have been written in the twenties. The style is 
mature, but the constant dwelling on death and the 
grave is a mark of youth. Young poets love to 
write about death, because its contrast to their 
present condition forms a romantic tragedy, 
sharply dramatic and yet instinctively felt to be 
nunoie. Tennyson's first volume is full of the 
details of dissolution, the falling jaw, the eye-balls 
fixing, the sharp-headed worm. Aged poets do 
not usually write in this manner, because death 
seems more realistic than romantic. It is a fact 
ratlier than an idea. When a young poet is ob- 
sessed with the idea of death, it is a sign, not of 
morl)idity, but of normality. 

The originality in this book consists not in the 
contrast between love and the grave, but in the 



68 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETEY 

acute self-consciousness of youth, in the pagan 
determination to enjoy nature without waiting till 
life 's summer is past. 

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now 
Is hung with bloom along the bough, 
And stands about the woodland ride 
Wearing white for Eastertide. 

Now, of my threescore years and ten. 
Twenty will not come again. 
And take from seventy springs a score. 
It only leaves me fifty more. 

And since to look at things in bloom 
Fifty springs are little room. 
About the woodlands I will go 
To see the cherry hung with snow. 

The death of the body is not the greatest tragedy 
in this volume, for suicide, a thought that youth 
loves to play with, is twice glorified. The death 
of love is often treated with an ironical bitterness 
that makes one think of Time's Laughing stocks. 

Is my friend hearty. 

Now I am thin and pine. 
And has he found to sleep in 

A better bed than mine? 

- Yes, lad, I lie easy, 

I lie as lads would choose; 
I cheer a dead man's sweetheart, 
Never ask me whose. 

The point of view expressed in The Carpenter's 
Son is singularly detached not only from conven- 
tional religious belief, but from conventional 



A. E. HOUSMAN 69 

reverence. But the originality in A Shropshire 
Lad, while more strikingly displayed in some 
poems than in others, leaves its mark on them all. 
It is the originality of a man who thinks his own 
thoughts with shy obstinacy, makes up his mind in 
secret meditation, quite unaffected by current 
opinion. It is not the poetry of a rebel; it is the 
poetry of an independent man, too indifferent to 
the crowd even to fight them. And now and then 
we find a lyric of flawless beauty, that lingers in 
the mind like the glow of a sunset. 

Into my heart an air that kills 

From yon far country blows: 
What are those blue remembered hills, 

What spires, what farms are those? 

That is the land of lost content, 

I see it shining plain, 
The happy highways where I went. 

And cannot come again. 

Mr. Housman's poems are nearer to the twentieth 
century in spirit than the work of the late Vic- 
torians, and many of them are curiously prophetic 
of the dark days of the present war. What 
strange vision made him write such poems as The 
Recruit, The Street Sounds to the Soldiers' Tread, 
The Day of Battle, and On the Idle Hill of Sum- 
mer? Change the colour of the uniforms, and 
these four poems would fit today's tragedy ac- 
curately. They are indeed superior to most of 
the war poems written by the professional poets 
since 1914. 



70 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

Ludlow, for over associated with Milton's 
Connis, is now and will bo for many years to come 
also sit!:nitieant in the minds of men as the home of 
a Shropshire lad. 



CHAPTER III 

JOHN MASEFIELD 

John Musefiold — now win<; in old bottles — hack to Chaucer — 
the soll'-consciouH adventurer — early education and experiences 
— Dauber — Mr. Masefield's remarks on Wordsworth — Words- 
worth's famous Preface and its application to the poetry of 
Mr. M.'isefield — The Everlasting Mercy — The Widow in the 
Bye Street and its Chaucerian manner — his masterfjiecc — The 
Daffodil Fields — similarities to Wordsworth — the jjart played 
by the flowers — comparison of 'The Daffodil Fields with Enoch 
Arden — the war poem, August 1914 — tlie lyrics — the sfjnnets — 
the novels — his object in writing — his contribution to the ad- 
vance of poetry. 

Poets are the Great Exceptions, Poets are for 
ever performing the impossible. "No man 
putteth new wine into old bottles . . . new wine 
must be put into new bottles." But putting new 
wine into old bottles has been the steady profes- 
sional occupation of John Masefield. While many 
of our contemporary vers librists and other ex- 
perimentalists have been on the hunt for new bot- 
tles, sometimes, perhaps, more interested in the 
bottle than in the wine, John Masefield has been 
constantly pouring his heady drink into recep- 
tacles five hundred years old. In subject-matter 
and in language he is not in the least ''tradi- 
tional," not at all Victorian; he is wholly modern, 
new, contemporary. Yet while he draws his 
themes and his heroes from his own experience, his 

71 



72 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

inspiration as a poet comes directly from Chaucer, 
who died in 1400. He is, indeed, the Chaucer of 
today ; the most closely akin to Chaucer — not only 
in temperament, but in literary manner — of all the 
writers of the twentieth century. The beautiful 
metrical form that Chaucer invented — rime 
royal — ideally adapted for narrative poetry, as 
shown in Troilus and Criseyde, is the metre chosen 
by John Masefield for The Widow in the Bye 
Street and for Dauher; the only divergence in The 
Da/fodil Fields consisting in the lengthening of 
the seventh line of the stan2?a, for which he had 
plenty of precedents. Mr. Masefield owes more 
to Chaucer than to any other poet. 

Various are the roads to poetic achievement. 
Browning became a great poet at the age of 
twenty, with practically no experience of life out- 
side of books. He had never travelled, he had 
never ''seen the world," but was brought up in a 
library; and was so deeply read in the Greek poets 
and dramatists that a sunrise on the ^gean Sea 
was more real to him than a London fog. He 
never saw Greece with his natural eyes. In the 
last year of his life, being asked by an American 
if he had been much in Athens, he replied con- 
tritely, "Thou stick 'st a dagger in me." He be- 
lied Goethe 's famous dictum. 

John Masefield was born at Ledbury, in western 
England, in 1874. He ran away from home, 
shipped as cabin boy on a sailing vessel, spent 
some years before the mast, tramped on foot 



JOHN MASEFIELD 73 

through various countries, turned up in New York, 
worked in the old Columbia Hotel in Greemvich 
Avenue, and had plenty of opportunity to study 
human nature in the bar-room. Then he entered 
a carpet factory in the Bronx. But he was the 
last man in the world to become a carpet knight. 
He bought a copy of Chaucer's poems, stayed up 
till dawn reading it, and for the first time was sure 
of his future occupation. 

John Masefield is the real man-of-war-bird im- 
agined by Walt Whitman. He is the bird self- 
conscious, the wild bird plus the soul of the poet. 

To cope with heaven and earth and sea and hurricane, 

Thou ship of air that never furl'st thy sails, 

Days, even weeks untired and onward, through spaces, realms 

gyrating, 
At dusk that look'st on Senegal, at mom America, 
That sport'st amid the lightning-flash and thunder-cloud. 
In them, in thy experiences, had'st thou my soul. 
What joys! what joys were thine! 

They that go down to the sea in ships, that do busi- 
ness in great waters, these see the works of the 
Lord, and His wonders in the deep. They do in- 
deed ; they see them as the bird sees them, with no 
spiritual vision, with no self-consciousness, with 
no power to refer or to interpret. It is sad that 
so many of those who have marvellous experiences 
have nothing else; while those who are sensitive 
and imaginative live circumscribed. What does 
the middle watch mean to an average seaman? 
But occasionally the sailor is a Joseph Conrad or 
a John Masefield. Then the visions of splendour 



74 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

and the glorious voices of nature are seen and 
heard not only by the eye and the ear, but by the 
spirit. 

Although Chaucer took Mr. Masefield out of the 
carpet factory even as Spenser released Keats, 
it would be a mistake to suppose (as many do) 
that the Ledbury boy was an uncouth vagabond, 
who, without reading, without education, and with- 
out training, suddenly became a poet. He had a 
good school education before going to sea; and 
from earliest childhood he longed to write. Even 
as a little boy he felt the impulse to put his dreams 
on paper; he read everything he could lay his 
hands ou, and during all the years of bodily toil, 
afloat and ashore, he had the mind and the as- 
piration of a man of letters. Never, I suppose, 
was there a greater contrast between an indi- 
vidual's outer and inner life. He mingled with 
rough, brutal, decivilized creatures ; his ears were 
assaulted by obscene language, spoken as to an 
equal; he saw the ugliest side of humanity, and 
the blackest phases of savagery. Yet through it 
all, sharing these experiences with no trace of con- 
descension, his soul was like a lily. 

He descended into hell again and again, coming 
out A\ith his inmost spirit unblurred and shining, 
even as the rough diver brings from the depths 
the perfect pearl. For every poem that he has 
written reveals two things: a knowledge of the 
harshness of life, with a nature of extraordinary 
purity, delicacy, and grace. To find a parallel to 



JOHN MASEFIELD 75 

this, we must recall the figure of Dostoevski in the 
Siberian prison. 

Many men of natural good taste and good breed- 
ing have succumbed to a coarse environment. 
What saved our poet, and made his experiences 
actually minister to his spiritual flame, rather than 
burn him up? It was perhaps that final miracle 
of humanity, acute self-consciousness, stronger in 
some men than in others, strongest of all in the 
creative artist. Even at the age of twenty, 
Browning felt it more than he felt anything else, 
and his words would apply to John Masefield, and 
explain in some measure his thirst for sensation 
and his control of it. 

I am made up of an intensest life, 

Of a most clear idea of consciousness 

Of self, distinct from all its qualities, 

From all affections, passions, feelings, powers; 

And tlius far it exists, if tracked, in all : 

But linked, in me, to self-supremacy. 

Existing as a centre to all things, 

Most potent to create and rule and call 

Upon all things to minister to it; 

And to a principle of restlessness 

Which would be all, have, see, know, taste, feel, all — 

This is myself. 

Although the poem Dauber is a true story — for 
there was such a man, who suffered both horrible 
fear within and brutal ridicule without, who finally 
conquered both, and who, in the first sweets of 
victory, as he was about to enter upon his true 
career, lost his life by falling from the yardarm — 



76 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

I cannot help thinking that Mr. Masefield put a 
good deal of himself into this strange hero. The 
adoration of beauty, which is the lodestar of the 
poet, lifted Dauber into a different world from the 
life of the ship. He had an ungovernable desire 
to paint the constantly changing phases of beauty 
in the action of the vessel and in the wonders of the 
sea and sky. In this passion his shy, sensitive 
nature was stronger than all the brute strength 
enjoyed by his shipmates ; they could destroy his 
paintings, they could hurt his body, they could 
torture his heart. But they could not prevent him 
from following his ideal. Dauber died, and his 
pictures are lost. But in the poem describing his 
aims and his sufferings, Mr. Masefield has accom- 
plished with his pen what Dauber failed to do with 
his brush; the beauty of the ship, the beauty of 
dawn and of midnight, the majesty of the storm 
are revealed to us in a series of unforgettable pic- 
tures. And one of Edison's ambitions is here 
realized. At the same moment we see the fright- 
ful white-capped ocean mountains, and we hear 
the roar of the gale. 

Water and sky were devils' brews which boiled, 

Boiled, shrieked, and glowered ; but the ship was saved. 
Snugged safely down, though fourteen sails were split. 
Out of the dark a fiercer fury raved. 
The grey-backs died and mounted, each crest lit 
With a white toppling gleam that hissed from it 
And slid, or leaped, or ran with whirls of cloud, 
Mad with inhuman life that shrieked aloud. 



JOHN MASEFIELD 77 

Mr. Masefield is a better poet than critic. In 
the New York Tribune for 23 January 1916, he 
spoke with modesty and candour of his own work 
and his own aims, and no one can read what he 
said without an increased admiration for him. 
But it is difficult to forgive him for talking as he 
did about Wordsworth, who ''wrote six poems and 
then fell asleep.'' And among the six are not 
Tintern Abbey or the Intimations of Immortality. 
Meditative poetry is not Mr. Masefield 's strongest 
claim to fame, and we do not go to poets for illu- 
minating literary criticism. Swinburne was so 
violent in his "appreciations" that his essays in 
criticism are adjectival volcanoes. Every man 
with him was God or Devil. It is rare that a 
creative poet has the power of interpretation of 
literature possessed by William Watson. Mr. 
Masefield does not denounce Wordsworth, as Swin- 
burne denounced Byron ; he is simply blind to the 
finest qualities of the Lake poet. Yet, although he 
carries Wordsworth's famous theory of poetry to 
an extreme that would have shocked the author of 
it — if Mr. Masefield does not like Tintern Abbey, 
we can only imagine Wordsworth's horror at The 
Everlasting Mercy — the philosophy of poetry un- 
derlying both The Everlasting Mercy, The Widow 
in the Bye Street, and other works is essentially 
that of William Wordsworth. Keeping The Ever- 
lasting Mercy steadily in mind, it is interesting, 
instructive, and even amusing to read an extract 
from Wordsworth's famous Preface of 1800. 



78 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

"The principal object, then, proposed in these 
Poems was to choose incidents and situations from 
common life, and to relate or describe them, 
throughout, as far as was possible in a selection 
of language really used by men, and, at the same 
time, to throw over them a certain colouring of 
imagination, whereby ordinary things should be 
presented to the mind in an unusual aspect ; and, 
further, and above all, to make these incidents and 
situations interesting by tracing in them, truly 
though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our 
nature; chiefly, as far as regards the manner in 
which we associate ideas in a state of excitement. 
Humble and rustic life was generally chosen, be- 
cause, in that condition, the essential passions of 
the heart find a better soil in which they can attain 
their maturity, are less under restraint, and speak 
a plainer and more emphatic language; because 
in that condition of life our elementary feelings co- 
exist in a state of greater simplicity, and, conse- 
quently, may be more accurately contemplated, 
and more forcibly communicated; because the 
manners of rural life germinate from those ele- 
mentary feelings, and, from the necessary charac- 
ter of rural occupations, are more easily compre- 
hended, and are more durable ; and, lastly, because 
in that condition the passions of men are incor- 
porated with the beautiful and permanent forms 
of nature. ' ' 

When Wordsworth wrote these dicta, he fol- 
lowed them up with some explicit reservations, 



JOHN MASEFIELD 79 

and made many more implicit ones. Mr. Mase- 
field, in the true manner of the twentieth century, 
makes none at all. Taking the language of 
Wordsworth exactly as it stands in the passage 
quoted above, it applies with precision to the 
method employed by Mr. Masefield in the poems 
that have given him widest recognition. And in 
carrying this theory of poetry to its farthest ex- 
treme in The Everlasting Mercy, not only did its 
author break with tradition, the tradition of nine- 
teenth-century poetry, as Wordsworth broke with 
that of the eighteenth, he succeeded in shocking 
some of his contemporaries, who refused to grant 
him a place among English poets. It was in the 
English Review for October, 1911, that The Ever- 
lasting Mercy first appeared. It made a sensa- 
tion. In 1912 the Academic Committee of the 
Royal Society of Literature awarded him the 
Edmond de Polignac prize of five hundred dollars. 
This aroused the wrath of the orthodox poet Ste- 
phen Phillips, who publicly protested, not with 
any animosity toward the recipient, but with the 
conviction that true standards of literature were 
endangered. 

It is unfortunate for an artist or critic to belong 
to any ''school" whatsoever. Belonging to a 
school circumscribes a man's sympathies. It 
shuts him away from outside sources of enjoy- 
ment, and makes him incapable of appreciating 
many new works of art, because he has prejudged 
them even before they were written. Poetry is 



80 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

greater than any definition of it. There is no 
doubt that Marpessa is a real poem; and there is 
no doubt that the same description is true of The 
Everlasting Mercy. 

In The Everlasting Mercy, the prize-fight, given 
in detail, by rounds, is followed by an orgy of 
drunkenness rising to a scale almost Homeric. 
The man, crazy with alcohol, runs amuck, and 
things begin to happen. The village is turned up- 
side down. Two powerful contrasts are dramati- 
cally introduced, one as an interlude between vio- 
lent phases of the debauch, the other as a conclu- 
sion. The first is the contrast between the insane 
buffoon and the calm splendour of the night. 

I opened window wide and leaned 

Out of that pigstye of the fiend 

And felt a cool wind go like grace 

About the sleeping market-place. 

The clock struck three, and sweetly, slowly, 

The bells chimed Holy, Holy, Holy; 

And in a second's pause there fell 

The cold note of the chapel bell, 

And then a cock crew, flapping wings. 

And summat made me think of things. 

How long those ticking clocks had gone 

From church and chapel, on and on. 

Ticking the time out, ticking slow 

To men and girls who'd come and go. 

These thoughts suddenly become intolerable. 
A second fit of madness, wilder than the first, 
drives the man about the to-^m like a tornado. 
Finally and impressively comes the contrast be- 
tween the drunkard's horrible mirth and the sud- 



JOHN MASEFIELD 81 

den calm in his mind when the tall pale Quakeress 
hypnotizes him with conviction of sin. She drives 
out the devils from his breast with quiet authority, 
and the peace of God enters into his soul. 

From the first word of the poem to the last the 
man's own attitude toward fighting, drink, and 
religion is logically sustained. It is perfect 
drama, with never a false note. The hero is one 
of the ' ' twice-born men, ' ' and the work may fairly 
be taken as one more footnote to the varieties of 
religious experience. 

I have been told on good authority that of all his 
writings Mr. Masefield prefers Nan, The Widow 
in the Bye Street, and The Everlasting Mercy. I 
think he is right. In these productions he has no 
real competitors. They are his most original, 
most vivid, most powerful pieces. He is at his 
best when he has a story to tell, and can tell it 
freely in his own unhampered way, a combination 
of drama and narrative. In The Everlasting 
Mercy, written in octosyllabics, the metre of 
Christmas Eve, he is unflinchingly realistic, as 
Browning was in describing the chapel. The 
Athenceum thought Browning ought not to write 
about the mysteries of the Christian faith in dog- 
gerel. But Christmas Eve is not doggerel. It 
is simply the application of the rules of realism 
to a discussion of religion. It may lack the dig- 
nity of the Essay on Man, but it is more interest- 
ing because it is more definite, more concrete, more 
real. In The Everlasting Mercy we have beauti- 



82 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

fill passng-os of description, sharply oxcitinc: nar- 
ration, while the dramatic element is furnished by 
conversation — and what conversation ! It dilfers 
from ordinary poetry as the sermons of an 
evangelist diifer from the sermons of Bishops. 
Mr. ]\[asefield is a natnral-born dramatist. He is 
never content to describe his cliaracters ; he makes 
them talk, and talk their own language, and you 
will never g'o far in his longer poems without see- 
ing the characters rise from the page, spring into 
life, and immediately you hear their voices raised 
in angiy altercation. It is as though he felt the 
reality of his men and women so keenly that he 
cannot keep them doAm. They refuse to remain 
quiet. They insist on taking the poem into their 
own hands, and running away with it. 

When we are reading The Widoiv in the Bye 
Street we realize that Mr. Masefield has studied 
with some profit the art of narrative verse as dis- 
played by Chaucer. The story begins directly, 
and many necessary facts are revealed in the first 
stanza, in a manner so simple that for the mo- 
ment we forget that this apparent simplicity is 
artistic excellence. The Niors Priest's Tale is a 
model of attack. 

A poure wydwe. somdel stope in age. 
Was whilom dwellyngc in a narwe cottage, 
Beside a grove, stondynge in a dale. 
This wydwe, of which I telle vow my tale, 
Syn thilke day that she was last a wj-f, 
In pacience ladde a ful symple lyf, 
For litel was hir eatel and bir rente. 



JOHN MASEFIELD 83 

Now if I could have only one of Mr. Masefield 's 
books, I would take The Widow in the Bye Street. 
Its opening lines have the much-in-little so char- 
acteristic of Chaucer. 

Down Byo Street, in a little Shropshire town, 
Tliere lived a widow with her only son: 
Slie had no wealth nor title to renown. 
Nor any joyous hours, never one. 
She rose from raf^ged mattress before sun 
And stitched all day until her eyes were red. 
And had to stitch, because her man was dead. 

This is one of the best narrative poems in mod- 
em literature. It rises from calm to the fiercest 
and most tumultuous passions that usurp the 
throne of reason. Love, jealousy, hate, revenge, 
murder, succeed in cumulative force. Then the 
calm of unmitigated and hopeless woe returns, 
and we leave the widow in a solitude peopled only 
with memories. It is melodrama elevated into 
poetry. The mastery of the artist is shown in 
the skill with which he avoids the quagmire of 
sentimentality. We can easily imagine what form 
this story would take under the treatment of many 
jjopular writers. But although constantly ap- 
proaching the verge, Mr. Masefield never falls in. 
He has known so much sentimentality, not merely 
in books and plays, but in human beings, that he 
understands how to avoid it. Furthermore, he is 
steadied by seeing so plainly the weaknesses of 
his characters, just as a great nervous specialist 
gains in poise by observing his patients. And 



84 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

porliaps our author fools the sorrows of the widow 
too deeply to talk about them with any conven- 
tional affectation. 

I should like to find some one who, without much 
familiarity with the fixed stars in English litera- 
ture, had read The Dajfodil Fields, and then ask 
him to guess who wrote the following stanzas: 

A jrontle answer did the old Man nudic, 
In courteous speech which forth he slowly drew; 
And him with further words I thus bespake, 
"What occu])ation do you there pursue? 
This is a lonesome place for one like you." 
Ere he replied, a Hash of mild surprise 
Broke from the sable orbs of his yet-vivid eyes. 

"This will break Michael's heart," he said at length. 
"Poor Michael," she replied; "they wasted hours. 
He loved his father so. God j^^ive him strength. 
This is a cruel thing this life of oui"s." 
The windy woodland glinnnered with shut flowers, 
White wood anenunies that the wiiut blew down. 
The valley opened wide beyond the starry town. 

And I think he would reply with some confi- 
dence, ''John Masefield." He would be right 
concerning the second stanza; but the first is, as 
every one ought to know and does not, from 
Besolufion and Independenee, by William Words- 
worth. It is significant that this is one of the six 
poems excepted by Mr. Masefield from the mass of 
Wordsworthian mediocrity. It is, of course, a 
great poem, although when it was published (1807, 
written in 1802), it seemed by conventional stand- 
ards no poem at all. Shortly after its appear- 



JOHN MASEFIELD 85 

ance, some one read it aloud to an intelligent 
woman; she sobbed unrestrainedly; then, recover- 
ing herself, said shamefacedly, *' After all, it isn't 
poetry." The reason, I suppose, why she thought 
it could not be poetry was because it was so much 
nearer life than "art." The simplicity of the 
scene ; the naturalness of the dialogue ; the home- 
liness of the old leech-gatherer; these all seemed 
to be outside the realm of the heroic, the elevated, 
the sublime, — the particular business of poetry, 
as she mistakenly thought. The reason why John 
Masofield admires this poem is because of its 
vitality, its naturalness, its easy dialogue — main 
characteristics of his own work. In writing The 
Daffodil Fields, he consciously or unconsciously 
selected the same metre, introduced plenty of con- 
versation, as he loves to do in all his narrative 
poetry, and set his tragedy on a rural stage. 

It is important here to repeat the last few 
phrases already quoted from Wordsworth's 
famous Preface: **The manners of rural life 
germinate from those elementary feelings, and, 
from the necessary character of rural occupations, 
are more easily comprehended, and are more dur- 
able; and, lastly, because in that condition the 
passions of men are incorporated with the beau- 
tiful and permanent forms of nature." If Mr. 
Masefield had written this preface for The Daffo- 
dil Fields, he could not have more accurately ex- 
pressed both the artistic aim of his poem and its 
natural atmosphere. ''The passions of men are 



86 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETEY 

incorporated with the beautiful and permanent 
forms of nature." In this work, each one of the 
seven sections ends with the daffodils ; so that no 
matter how base and truculent are the revealed 
passions of man, the final impression at the close 
of each stage is the unchanging loveliness of the 
delicate golden flowers. Indeed, the daffodils not 
only fill the whole poem with their fluttering 
beauty, they play the part of the old Greek chorus. 
At the end of each act in this steadily growing 
tragedy, they comment in their own incomparable 
way on the sorrows of man. 

So the night passed ; the noisy wind went down ; 

The half-burnt moon her starry trackway rode. 

Then the first fire was lighted in the town, 

And the first carter stacked his early load. 

Upon the farm's drawn blinds the morning glowed; 

And down the valley, with little clucks and rills, 

The dancing waters danced by dancing daffodils. 

But if, consciously or unconsciously, Mr. Mase- 
field in the composition of The Daffodil Fields 
followed the metre and the manner of Words- 
worth in Resolution and Independence, in the stoiy 
itself he challenges Tennyson ^s Enoch Arden. 
Whether he meant to challenge it, I do not know ; 
but the comparison is unescapable. Tennyson did 
not invent the story, and any poet has the right to 
use the material in his own fashion. Knowing 
Mr. Masefield from The Everlasting Mercy and 
The Widoiv in the Bye Street, it would have been 
safe to prophesy in advance that his own Enoch 



JOHN MASEFIELD 87 

would not show the self-restraint practised by the 
Tennysonian hero. Reserve and restraint were 
the trump cards of the Typical Victorian, just as 
the annihilation of all reserve is a characteristic 
of the twentieth-century artist. In the Idylls of 
the King, the parting of Guinevere and Arthur was 
what interested Tennyson; the poets of today 
would of course centre attention on the parting of 
Guinevere and Lancelot, and like so many ''ad- 
vances," they would in truth be only going back 
to old Malory. 

''Neither in the design nor in the telling did, 
or could, Enoch Arden come near the artistic 
truth of The Daffodil Fields," says Professor 
Quiller-Couch, of Cambridge. I am not entirely 
sure of the truth of this very positive statement. 
Each is a rural poem ; the characters are simple ; 
the poetic accompaniment supplied by the daffo- 
dils in one poem is supplied in the other by the 
sea. And yet, despite this latter fact, if one reads 
Enoch Arden immediately after The Daffodil 
Fields, it seems to be without salt. It lacks 
flavour, and is almost tasteless compared with the 
biting condiments of the other poem, prepared as 
it was for the sharper demands of twentieth-cen- 
tury palates. We like, as Browning thought 
Macready would like "stabbing, drabbing, et 
autres gentillesses," and Mr. Masefield knows how 
to supply them. Yet I am not sure that the self- 
denial of Enoch and the timid patience of Philip 
do not both indicate a certain strength absent in 



88 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

Mr. Masefield's wildly exciting tale. Of course 
Tennyson's trio are all *'good" people, and lie 
meant to make them so. In the other work 
Michael is a selfish scoundrel, Lion is a murderer, 
and Mary an adulteress; and we are meant to 
sympathize with all three, as Mr. Galsworthy 
wishes us to sympathize with those who follow 
their instincts rather than their consciences. One 
poem celebrates the strength of character, the 
other the strength of passion. But there can be 
no doubt that Enoch (and perhaps Philip) loved 
Annie more than either Michael or Lion loved 
Mary — which is perhaps creditable; for Mary is 
more attractive. 

One should remember also that in these two 
poems — so interesting to compare in so many dif- 
ferent ways — Tennyson tried to elevate a homely 
theme into ''poetry"; whereas Mr. Masefield finds 
the truest poetry in the bare facts of life and 
feeling. Tennyson is at his best outside of drama, 
wherever he has an opportunity to adorn and em- 
bellish; Mr. Masefield is at his best in the fierce 
conflict of human wills. Thus Enoch Arden is not 
one of Tennyson's best poems, and the best parts 
of it are the purely descriptive passages ; whereas 
in The Daffodil Fields Mr. Masefield has a sub- 
ject made to his hand, and can let himself go with 
impressive power. In the introduction of con- 
versation into a poem — a special gift with Mr. 
Masefield — Tennyson is usually weak, which 
ought to have taught him never to venture into 



JOHN MASEFIELD 89 

drama. Nothing is worse in Enoch Arden than 
passages like these : 

"Annie, this voyage by the grace of God 
Will bring fair weather yet to all of us. 
Keep a clean hearth and a clear fire for me, 
For I'll be back, my girl, before you know it." 
Then lightly rocking baby's cradle, "and he. 
This pretty, puny, weakly little one, — 
Nay — for I love him all the better for it — 
God bless him, he shall sit upon my knees 
And I will tell him tales of foreign parts. 
And make him merry, when I come home again. 
Come, Annie, come, cheer up before I go." 

One of the reasons why twentieth-century read- 
ers are so impatient with Enoch Arden, is because 
Tennyson refused to satisfy the all but universal 
love of a fight. The conditions for a terrific 
''mix-up" were all there, and just when the spec- 
tator is looking for an explosion of wrath and 
blood, the poet turns away into the more heroic 
but less thrilling scene of self-conquest. Mr. 
Masefield may be trusted never to disappoint his 
readers in such fashion. It might be urged that 
whereas Tennyson gave a picture of man as he 
ought to be, Mr. Masefield painted him as he really 
is. 

But The Daffodil Fields is not melodrama. It 
is a poem of extraordinary beauty. Every time 
I read it I see in it some "stray beauty-beam" 
that I missed before. It would be impossible to 
translate it into prose; it would lose half its in- 
terest, and all of its charm. It would be easier 



00 ADVANCE OF ENCLTSTI POETRY 

to translate Tennyson's Dora into prose than The 
Daffodil Fields. In fact, I have often thought 
that if the story of Dora were told in concise 
prose, in the manner of C^uy de jMaupassant, it 
would distinctly gain in force. 

No poet, with any claim to the name, can be 
accurately labelled by an adjective or a phrase. 
You may think you know his *' manner," and he 
suddeidy develops a ditTerent one; this you call 
his "later'' manner, and he disconcerts you by 
harking back to the "earlier," or trying some- 
thing, that if you nmst have labels, you are forced 
to call his "latest," knowing now that it is sub- 
ject to change without notice. INIr. IMasetield pub- 
lished .77/(' Ererlastinp Mcrci/ in 1911 ; The Widow 
in the Bi/e Street hi 1912-/ Dauber in 1912; The 
Daffodil Fields in 1913. We had him classified. 
He was a writer of sustained narrative, unscrupu- 
lous ill the use of language, bursting with vitality, 
sacrificing anything and everything that stood in 
the way of his eft'ect. This was "red blood" 
verse raised to poetry by sheer inspiration, backed 
by remarkable skill in the use of rime. We 
looked for more of the same thing from him, know- 
ing that in this particular field he had no rival. 

Then came the war. As every soldier drew his 
sword, every poet drew his pen. And of all the 
poems published in the early days of the struggle, 
none etpialled in high excellence Aupiist 1914, by 
John Masetield. And its tone was precisely the 
opposite of what his most famous efforts had led 



JOHN MASEFIELD 91 

UH to (ixpact It waH not a lurid picture of whole- 
Halo murder, nor a bottle of vitriol thrown in the 
face of the KaJHor. After the thunder and the 
lightning, came the still Hmall voice. It is a poem 
in the metre and manner of Gray, with the same 
silver tones of twilit peace — heartrending ?;y con- 
trast with the Continental scene. 

How still this quiet cornfield is to-night; 

By an intenser glow tlie evening falls, 
Bringing, not darknr^s, but a deeper light; 

Among tlie stooks a partridge covey cuUh. 

Tlie windows glitter on the distant hill; 

Beyond the hedge the sheep-hells in the fold 
Htundde on sudden music and are still; 

The forlorn pinewoods droop above the wold. 

An endless quiet valley reaches out 

Pjjust the bhie hills into the evening sky; 

Over the stubble, cawing, goes a rout 

Of rooks from harvest, flagging as they fly. 

80 beautiful it is I never saw 

80 great a beauty on these English fields 

Touched, by the twilight's c/jming, into awe, 
Ripe to the soul and rich with summer's yields. 

The fields are inhabited with the ghosts of 
ploughmen of old who p^ave themselves for Eng- 
land, even as the faithful farmers now leave scenes 
inexpressibly dear. For the aim of our poet is to 
magnify the lives of the humble and the obscure, 
whether on land or sea. In the beautiful Conse- 
cration that he prefixed to Salt-Water Ballads, he 
expressly turns his back on Commanders, on Rul- 



92 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETBY 

ers, on Princes and Prelates, in order to sing 
of the stokers and chantymen, yes, even of the 
dust and scum of the earth. They work, and 
others get the praise. They are inarticulate, but 
have found a spokesman and a champion in the 
poet. His sea-poems in this respect resemble 
Conrad's sea-novels. This is perhaps one of the 
chief functions of the man of letters, whether he 
be poet, novelist or dramatist — never to let us 
forget the anonymous army of toilers. For, as 
Clyde Fitch used to say, the great things do not 
happen to the great writers ; the great things hap- 
pen to the little people they describe. 

Although Mr. Masefield's reputation depends 
mainly on his narrative poems, he has earned a 
high place among lyrical poets. These poems, at 
least many of them, are as purely subjective as 
The Everlasting Mercy was purely objective. 
Earely does a poem unfurl with more loveliness 
than this : 

I have seen dawn and sunset on moors and windy hills 
Coming in solemn beauty like slow old tunes of Spain ; 

I have seen the lady April bringing the daffodils, 

Bringing the springing grass and the soft warm April 
rain. 

In Tewkesbury Road and in Sea Fever the poet 
expresses the urge of his own heart. In Bi- 
ography he quite properly adopts a style exactly 
the opposite of the biographical dictionary. 
Dates and events are excluded. But the various 
moments when life was most intense in actual ex- 



JOHN MASEFIELD 93 

perience, sights of mountains on sea and land, 
long walks and talks with an intimate friend, the 
frantically fierce endeavour in the racing cutter, 
quiet scenes of beauty in the peaceful country- 
side. ''The days that make us happy make us 
wise." 

As Mr. Masefield's narratives take us back to 
Chaucer, so his Sonnets (1916) take us back to the 
great Elizabethan sequences. "Whether or not 
Shakespeare unlocked his heart in his sonnets is 
impossible to determine. Wordsworth thought he 
did. Browning thought quite otherwise. But these 
sonnets of our poet are undoubtedly subjective; 
no one without the necessary information would 
guess them to come from the author of The Ever- 
lasting Mercy. They reveal what has always 
been — through moving accidents by flood and field 
— the master passion of his mind and heart, the 
worship of Beauty. The entire series illustrates a 
tribute to Beauty expressed in the first one — ''De- 
light in her made trouble in my mind." This 
mental disturbance is here the spur to composi- 
tion. They are experiments in relative, medita- 
tive, speculative poetry; and while they contain 
some memorable lines, and heighten one's respect 
for the dignity and sincerity of their author 's tem- 
perament, they are surely not so successful as 
his other work. They are not clearly articulate. 
Instead of the perfect expression of perfect 
thoughts — a gift enjoyed only by Shakespeare — 
they reveal the extreme difficulty of metrically 



lU ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

voicing" his ''trouble." It is in a way like the 
music of the Lirhrstod. lie is struggling- io say 
Avhat is in his nruul. he approaches it, falls away, 
conies near again, only to be tinally batlled. 

In 191S ^Ir. Masetielii returned to battle, murder 
and sudden death in the romantic poem liosas. 
This is an exciting tale told in over a humlred 
stanzas, and it is safe to say that any one who 
reads the tirst six lines will reaii to the end 
Avithout moving in his chair. .Mtlunigh this is the 
latest in publication o\' our poet 's works, it sounds 
as if it were written years ago, before he had at- 
tained the umstery so evident in llic Widoir in 
tlic l)ifc Street. It will add little to the author's 
reputation. 

I do not think ^tr. Masetield has received suffi- 
cient credit for his prose fiction. In 1905 he pub- 
lished A Ma'nisaiJ Haul, which contained a num- 
ber of short stories and sketches, many of which 
had appeared in the ISianchester Giiard'uni. It is 
interesting to rec^Ul his connection with that 
famous journal. These are the results partly of 
his experiences, partly of his reading. It is plain 
that he has turned over hundreds of old volumes of 
buccaneer lore. And humour is as abundant here 
as it is absent from his best novels. Captain Mar- 
oarct and ^[uUitudv and Solitude. These two 
books, recently republished in America, met with 
a chilling reception from the critics. For my 
part, I not only enjoyed reading them, I think 
every student of Mr. Masetield 's poetry might 



JOHN MASEFIELD 90 

read them with profitable pleasure. They are 
romances that only a poet could have written. It 
would be easier to turn them into verse than it 
would be to turn his verse-narratives into prose, 
and less would be lost in the transfer. In Mulii- 
iude and Solibide, the author has given us more 
of the results of his own thinking than can be 
found in most of the poems. Whole pages are 
filled with the pith of meditative thought. In 
Captain Margaret, we have a remarkable com- 
bination of the love of romance' and the romance 
of love. 

In response to a question asked him by the 
Tribune inter-viewer, as to the guiding motive in 
his writing, Mr. Masefield replied: **I desire to 
interpret life both by reflecting it as it appears 
and by portraying its outcome. Great art must 
contain these two attributes. Examine any of 
the dramas of Shakespeare, and you will find that 
their action is the result of a destruction of bal- 
ance in the beginning. It is like a cartful of ap- 
ples which is overturned. All the apples are 
spilled in the street. But you will notice that 
Shakespeare piles them up again in his incom- 
parable manner, many bruised, broken, and maybe 
a few lost." This is certainly an interesting way 
of putting the doctrine of analysis and synthesis 
as applied to art. 

What has Mr. Masefield done then for the ad- 
vance of poetry? One of his notable services is 
to have made it so interesting that thousands look 



!>(> An\'Axoi<': ov knotjsii poetry 

forwaril (o n now fKHMu from him as roadors look 
for M now stm-y by n ^Toat !iovolist. llo lias 
liolpiul to lako away poolry from its oonvontional 
••olovatii>n" and brini*- it cvorywhoro poiii'nanlly in 
contaol with ( h robb i nj;" li fo. Thus ho is omphatio 
ally apart from so oallod traditional pools who 
brilliantly follow tho Tonnysonian tradition, and 
uivo US anothor kind oi' onjoynnMit. Hnt althon,i;li 
Mr. MasiMioKi is a twontioth oontnry pool, it would 
bo a mistako to snpposo that ho has oricjinatcd tho 
dootrino that tho pool should spoak in a natural 
voioo about natural thinj^s, and not oultivato a 
"diotion." Hrowninu' spont his wholo life tight- 
iui^ for that dootrino, and wiMit to his ^-ravo cov- 
orod with hiMionrabU^ soars. WiM-dswiU'th suoooss- 
fully robollod against i\\o oonvontional g"armonts 
o\' tho Muso. rhanoor. Shakospoaro, and Urown- 
injj: aro tho pools who took human naturo as thoy 
found it; who thought lit'o itsolf was moro iutor- 
ostini;- than any thoory about it; who mado lan- 
i;uaiio appropriato to tho timo. tho plaoo, and tho 
man. rog'ardloss o[' tho opinion o{' thoso who 
thouiiht tho l\luso oug-ht to woar a uniform. Tho 
aim of our host twontioth ooutury pools is not 
roally to writo somothinii- now and strangv, it is to 
got baok to thoso pools who livod up to tlioir con- 
viol ion that tho businoss oi' pootry is li> ohroniolo 
tho slagos of all life. ^Phis is not tho only kind of 
pootry, but it is tho kind high in favour during 
thoso prosont yoars. Tho fountain-hoad of pootry 
is human naturo, and our poets aro trying to get 



JOHN MASEFIELT) 97 

bnck to It, juHt fXH many of tho Ho-callod advances 
iji Hili^nouH thought aro roally attomptn to ^ot 
hack to the Founder of CJhriHtianity, before the 
tlieolo^iariH built tljeir stockade around Jlim. 
Mr. Manefield iH a mighty force in the renewal of 
f)oetry; in the art of dramatic narrative he goen 
hack to th(! Hincerity and catholicity of (Jhaucer. 
l-'or hiH lan^ia^e, he haw carried Wordsworth '« 
id(;a of ''naturalncHH" to its extreme limits. For 
his material, he finds nothing common or unclean. 
I>ut all his virility, candour, and sympathy, backed 
hy all his astonishing range of experience, would 
not hav(5 made him a poet, had he not possessed 
imagination, and the power to express his vision 
of life, the power, as he puts it, of getting the ap- 
f)les back into the cart. 



CHAPTER IV 

GIBSON AND HODGSON 

Two Northumberland poets — Wilfrid Wilson Gibson — his 
early failures — his studies of low life — his collected poems — his 
short dramas of pastoral experiences — Daily Bread — lack of 
melody — uncanny imagination — whimsies — poems of the Great 
War — their contrast to conventional sentimental ditties — the 
accusation — his contribution to the advance of poetry. — Ralph 
Hodgson — his shyness — his slender output — his fastidious self- 
criticism — his quiet facing of the known facts in nature and in 
humanity — his love of books — his humour — his respect for 
wild and tame animals — the high percentage of artistic excel- 
lence in his work. — Lascelles Abercrombie. 

Wilfrid Wilson Gibson — a horrible mouthful — 
was born in Hexham, Northumberland, in 1878. 
Like Walt Whitman's, his early poetry was ortho- 
dox, well groomed, and uninteresting. It pro- 
duced no effect on the public, but it produced upon 
its author a mental condition of acute discontent 
— the necessary conviction of sin preceding regen- 
eration. Whether he could ever succeed in bring- 
ing his verse down to earth, he did not then 
know ; but so far as he was concerned, he not only 
got down to earth, but got under it. He made 
subterranean expeditions with the miners, he fol- 
lowed his nose into slums, he talked long hours 
with the unclassed, and listened sympathetically 
to the lamentations of sea-made widows. His 
nature — extraordinarily delicate and sensitive — 



WILFRID WILSON GIBSON 99 

received deep wounds, the scars of which appeared 
in his subsequent poetry. Now he lives where 
John Masefield was born, and like him, speaks for 
the inarticulate poor. 

In 1917 Mr. Gibson collected his poems in one 
thick volume of some five hundred and fifty pages. 
This is convenient for reference, but desperately 
hard to read, on account of the soggy weight of the 
book. Here we have, however, everything that 
he has thus far written which he thinks worth pre- 
serving. The first piece, Akra the Slave (1904), 
is a romantic monologue in free verse. Although 
rather short, it is much too long, and few persons 
will have the courage to read it through. It is 
incoherent, spineless, consistent only in dulness. 
Possibly it is worth keeping as a curiosity. Then 
comes Stonefolds (1906), a series of bitter bucolics. 
This is pastoral poetry of a new and refreshing 
kind — as unlike to the conventional shepherd- 
shepherdess mincing, intolerable dialogue as could 
well be imagined. For, among all the groups of 
verse, in which, for sacred order's sake, we ar- 
range English literature, pastoral poetry easily 
takes first place in empty, tinkling artificiality. 
In Stonefolds, we have six tiny plays, never con- 
taining more than four characters, and usually 
less, which represent, in a rasping style, the un- 
ending daily struggle of generation after genera- 
tion with the relentless forces of nature. It is sur- 
prising to see how, in four or five pages, the author 
gives a clear view of the monotonous life of sev- 



100 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

enty years ; in this particular art, Strindberg him- 
self has done no better. The experience of age 
is contrasted with the hope of youth. Perhaps 
the most impressive of them all is The Bridal 
where, in the presence of the newly wedded pair, 
the man's old, bed-ridden mother speaks of the 
chronic misery of her married life, intimates that 
the son is just like his dead father, and that there- 
fore the bride has nothing ahead of her but trag- 
edy. Then comes the conclusion, which reminds 
one somewhat of the close of Ibsen's Lady from 
the Sea. The young husband throws wide the 
door, and addresses his wife as follows: 

The door is open ; you are free to go. 
Why do you tarry? Are you not afraid? 
Go, ere I hate you. I'll not hinder you. 
I would not have you bound to me by fear. 
Don't fear to leave me ; rather fear to bide 
With me who am my father's very son. 
Go, lass, while yet I love you ! 

Esther {closing the door). I shall bide. 
I have heard all ; and yet, I would not go. 
Nor would I have a single word unsaid. 
I loved you, husband; yet, I did not know you 
Until your mother spoke. I know you now ; 
And I am not afraid. 

The first piece in Stonefolds represents the 
tragic helplessness of those newly born and those 
very old, a favourite theme with Maeterlinck. A 
lamb and a child are born on the same night, and 
both die before dawn. The lamb is a poetic sym- 
bol of babyhood. Nicholas, the aged shepherd, 



WILFRID WILSON GIBSON 101 

who longs to go out into the night and do his share 
of the work that must be done, but who is unable 
even to move, thus addresses the dying lamb: 

Poor, bleating beast ! We two are much alike, 
At either end of life, though scarce an hour 
You've been in this rough world, and I so long 
That death already has me by the heels; 
For neither of us can stir to help himself. 
But both must bleat for others' aid. This world 
Is rough and bitter to the newly bom. 
But far more bitter to the nearly dead. 

In Daily Bread (1908-09), there are eighteen 
brief plays, written not in orthodox blank verse, 
like Stonefolds, but in irregular, brittle, breathless 
metres. Here is where art takes the short cut 
to life, sacrificing every grace to gain reality ; the 
typical goal and method of twentieth-century 
poetry. So long as a vivid impression of char- 
acter and circumstance is produced, the vrriter ap- 
parently cares nothing about style. I say *' ap- 
parently," because the styleless style is perhaps 
the one best adapted to produce the sought-for 
effect. There is ever one difference between life 
and ''art" — between drama and theatre — that Mr. 
Gibson has, I suppose, tried to cancel in these 
poems of daily bread. In art, the bigger the 
drama, the bigger the stage ; one could not mount 
Gdtterddmmerung in a village schoolhouse. But 
Life does not fit the splendour of the setting to 
the grandeur of the struggle. In bleak farm cot- 
tages, in dull dwellings in city blocks, in slum tene- 



102 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETEY 

ments, the greatest of life's tragedies and come- 
dies are enacted — love, hate, avarice, jealousy, 
revenge, birth, death — the most terrific passions 
kno\m to human nature are fully presented, with- 
out the slightest care for appropriate sceneiy 
from the Master of the show. Thus our poet leads 
us by the hand into sea-girt huts, into hovels at 
the mouths of mines, into garrets of noisy cities, 
and makes us silent witnesses of elemental woe. 
Here Labour, man's greatest blessing, takes on 
the aspect of the primal curse, since so many 
tragedies spring from the simple root of poverty. 
The love of money may be the root of all evil, but 
the lack of it is the cause of much pain. 

It was a happy inspiration that made Mr. Gib- 
son call these scenes DaUy Bread; for it is the 
struggle, not for comfort, but for existence, that 
drives these men from mother, wife, and child 
into the thick of the fight. Many novels and plays 
are written nowadaj^s against "big business," 
where, among other real and imagined evils, the 
Business itself is represented as the villain in the 
home, alienating the husband's atfections from 
wife and children. Whatever may be the case 
with the private soldiers, the Captain of Industry 
does not, and by the nature of things cannot, con- 
fine his labours to an eight-hour day — ^when he 
finally comes home, he brings the business with 
him, fonning a more well-founded cause of jeal- 
ousy than the one usually selected for conventional 
drama. Mr. Gibson, however, is not interested 



WILFRID WILSON GIBSON 103 

in the tragic few, but in the tragic many, and in 
his poems the man of the house leaves early and 
returns late. The industrial war caused by social 
conditions takes him from home as surely and as 
perilously as though he were drafted into an ex- 
peditionary force. The daily parting is poignant, 
for every member of the family knows he may 
not come back. Perhaps the most dramatic illus- 
tration of this corroding worry is seen in The 
Night-Shift, where four women with a newly-born 
baby spend a night of agonized waiting, only to 
have their fears confirmed in the dawn. 

The wife, weak from childbirth, sits up in bed, 
and speaks : 

Will no one stop that tapping? 

I cannot sleep for it. 

I think that someone is shut in somewhere, 

And trjdng to get out. 

Will no one let them out, 

And stop the tapping? 

It keeps on tapping, tapping. . . . 

Tap . . . tap . . . tap . . . tap . . . 

And I can scarcely breathe. 

The darkness is so thick. 

It stifles me, 

And weighs so heavily upon me. 

And drips, and drips. . . . 

My hair is wet already; 

There's water all about my knees. . . . 

As though great rocks were hanging overhead ! 

And dripping, dripping. . . . 

I cannot lift my feet. 

The water holds them, 

It's creeping . . . creeping . . . creeping. . . . 

My wet hair drags me down. 



104 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

Ah, God! 

Will no one stop that tapping. . . . 

I cannot sleep. . . . 

And I would sleep 

Till he comes home. . . . 

Tap ... tap ... tap ... tap .. . 

These poems were, of course, composed before 
the war. In the greater tragedy, some of the 
lesser ones disappear. For example, Mr. Gib- 
son represents young, able-bodied, healthy and 
temperate men as unable to find work of any 
kind; their wives and cliildren starve because 
of the absence of employment. Surely, since 
August, 1914, this particular cause of suffering 
has been removed. 

In Womenkind (1909), dedicated to Rabbi and 
Mrs. Wise, we have a real play, not only dramatic 
in character and situation, but fitted for stage 
representation without the change of a word. 
The theme is just the opposite of Middleton's old 
drama, Women Beware Woynen. Here the two 
young women, one the mistress-mother, and one 
the bride, join forces against the man, and walk 
out of his house on the wedding-day. They feel 
that the tie between them is stronger than the 
tie which had united them severally to the man, 
and depart to live together. The play closes on a 
note of irony, for Jim, his blind father, and his 
weary mother repeat in turn — but with quite dif- 
ferent emphasis — the accusation that women are 
a faithless lot. 

The long series of poems called Fires (1910-11) 



WILFRID WILSON GIBSON 105 

differ in matter and manner from the earlier 
works. The form of drama is abandoned, and in 
its place we have vivid rimed narrative, mingled 
with glowing pictures of natural scenery, taken at 
all hours of the day and night. Each of his poems 
must be taken as a whole, for each poem strives 
for a single effect. This effect is often gained by 
taking some object, animate or inanimate, as a 
symbol. Thus, in The Hare, the hunted animal 
is the symbol of woman. The Flute, The Light- 
house, and The Money mean more than their defi- 
nition. Mr. Gibson is somewhat kinder to his 
readers in this collection, for the monotony of 
woe, that hangs over his work like a cloud, is 
rifted here and there by a ray of happiness. In 
The Shop, the little boy actually recovers from 
pneumonia, and our share in the father's delight 
is heightened by surprise, for whenever any of 
our poet's characters falls into a sickness, we have 
learned to expect the worst. Still, the darker side 
of life remains the author's chosen field of ex- 
ploration. Two pieces are so uncanny that one 
might almost think they proceeded from a dis- 
ordered imagination. The blind boy, who every 
day has rowed his father back and forth from 
the fishing-grounds, while the man steered, one 
day rows cheerfully toward home, unaware that 
his father is dead. The boy wonders at his fath- 
er's silence, and laughingly asserts that he has 
heard him snoring. Then his mirth changes to 
fear, and fear to horror. 



10t> ADVANCE OF ENGT.TSII POETRY 

Thoutrli nono lias ovor known 

How ho rowod in, alono. 

Ami novor touohod i\ ivof. 

Sonio say tlioy saw tlio iload man stoer — 

The dead num stoor the blind man home — 

Though, when they found him dead. 

His hand was oold as lead. 

Another straiiiiv poom desoribos how a cripple 
sits ill his room, with a mother eternally stitching- 
for bread, and watches out of the window the 
giant crane swing-ing vast weights through the 
sky. One night, whik^ he is half-dead with fear, 
the great crane swoops down upon hiui, clutches 
his bed, and swings him, beil and all. above the 
sleeping city, among the blazing stars. 

Following- ^fr. Gibson's development as a poet, 
year by year, we come to Thoroiujlifares 
(1908-14). These are short poems more conven- 
tional ill form than their predecessors, but just as 
stark and grim as chronicles of life. Every one 
remembers the torture indicted on women in the 
good-old-times, when they were strapped to posts 
on the flats at low^ tide, and allowed to watch the 
cruel slowniess of approaching death. The same 
theme, with, an even more terrible tennination, is 
selected by Mr. Gibson in SoJwaif Ford, where 
the c^irter is pinned by the heavy, overturned 
wa^on on the sands; while the tide gradually 
brings the water toward his helpless body. He 
dies a thousand deaths in imagination, but is res- 
cued just as the waves are lapping the wheels. 
Now he lies in bed, an incurable idiot, smiling as 



WILFRID -WILSON GIBSON 107 

ho 80CH ^old and sapphiro fishes swimming in the 
water over his head. . . . That rarest of all Eng- 
lish metres — which Browning chose for One Word 
More — is employed by Mr. Cjibson in a compound 
of tragedy-irony called The Vindictive Staircase. 
Unfortunately the rhythm is so closely associated 
with iirowning's love-poem, that these lines sound 
like a parody: 

Mrs. Murphy, tirriifleHt of Bpftctrrjs, 
You who won; tho <■h(t^tr\^iiii of charcrH, 
With ih(t hi'.ari of mnocj-noit and only 
Torn b(;twf!f;n a zent for pri(;st and porter, 
Mrw. Murphy of the ample \tfm}iu, — 
Buckler of a score or so of children. 

It seems best to leave this measure in the undis- 
turbed possession of the poet who used it su- 
premely well. Yet some of the verses in Thor- 
oufjhfares are an a/lvance on Mr. Gibson's previ- 
ous work. No reader will ever forget Wheels. 

Passing over Borderlands CI 9] 2 -14) which, 
with the exception of Akra, is the least successful 
of Mr. Gibson's works, we come to his most orig- 
inal contribution to modem poetry, the short 
poems included under the heading Battle 
(1914-15). These verses afford one more bit of 
evidence that in order to write unconventional 
thoughts, it is not necessary to use unconventional 
forms. The ideas expressed here can be found 
in no other war-poet; they are idiosyncratic to 
the highest degree; yet the verse-forms in which 
they are written are stanzaic, as traditional as the 



108 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

most conservative critic could desire. There is, 
of course, no reason why any poet should not com- 
pose in new and strange rhythms if he prefers 
to do so ; but I have never believed that original- 
ity in thought necessarily demands metrical meas- 
ures other than those found in the history of Eng- 
lish literature. 

These lyrical poems are dramatic monologues. 
Each one is the testimony of some soldier in the 
thick of the fight as to what he has seen or heard, 
or as to what memories are strongest in his mind 
as he lies in the filth of the trenches. Conven- 
tional emotions of enthusiasm, glory, sacrifice, 
courage, are omitted, not because they do not exist, 
but simply because they are taken for granted; 
these boys are aflame with such feelings at the 
proper time. But Mr. Gibson is more interested 
in the strange, fantastic thoughts, waifs of mem- 
ory, that wander across the surface of the mind in 
the midst of scenes of horror. And we feel that 
the more fantastic these thoughts are, the more 
do they reflect the deep truths of experience. 
Home naturally looms large, and some of the recol- 
lections of home take on a grim humour, strangely 
in contrast with the present environment of the 
soldier. 

HIS FATHER 

I quite forgot to put the spigot in. 

It's just come over me. . . . And it is queer 
To think he'll not care if we lose or win. 

And yet be jumping-mad about that beer. 



WILFKID WILSON GIBSON 109 

I left it running full. He must have said 
A thing or two. I'd give my stripes to hear 

What he will say if I'm reported dead 
Before he gets me told about that beer ! 

It would appear that the world has grown up, 
or at all events, grown much older, during the 
last forty years. It has grown older at a high 
rate of speed. The love of country is the same 
as ever, because that is a primal human passion, 
that will never change, any more than the love of 
the sexes; but the expression of battle-poems 
seems more mature, more sophisticated, if you 
like, in this war than in any preceding conflict. 
Most of the verses written in England and in 
America are as different as may be from ''Just 
before the battle, mother," which was so popular 
during our Civil War. Never before has the 
psychology of the soldier been so acutely studied 
by national poets. And instead of representing 
the soldier as a man swayed by a few elemental 
passions and lush sentiment, he is presented as 
an extraordinarily complex individual, with every 
part of his brain abnormally alert. Modem 
poetry, in this respect, has, I think, followed the 
lead of the realistic prose novel. Such books as 
Tolstoi's Sevastopol, and Zola^s La Debacle, have 
had a powerful effect in making war poetry more 
analytical; while that original story. The Red 
Badge of Courage, written by an inspired young 
American, Stephen Crane, has left its mark on 
many a volume of verse that has been produced 



no Ain-AXOK (M-^ KXc^i.isii riM'rrK^v 

sinoo Auiiust, HM-4. Tlio unnbM^vlu\^ roalisiu of 
tho troiu'lios, toiivthor with tlio psychology of tho 
8olilior. is oK\'irly niul sij;nit'u'antly rotloototl in 
From the Front i^llUS"). n lH>ok of poonis writ- 
ton by nion in sorvioo. oditod by l/iont. C^. K. An- 
lirows. 

What is iioing- io Wcouw oi' ns all if tho ob- 
session o( solf-oonsoionsnoss grows ovor strongvr ? 

There is not a traee of ehoap sentiment in Init- 
tle. Even the poems that eome nearest to tho 
emotional snrfaee are saved by some speeitio 
toneh. like the sense o( smell, whieh. ns every ono 
knows, is a sharper spnr io the memory than any 
other sensation. 

Totu^lit thov'ro sittiiii: by tho poat 

Tnlkinsr of ino, 1 know — 
(^niiultathor in tho inirh^jjoat. 

Mothor luul MoiT luxd ,1oo. 

T tool !\ suddon putT of hoat 

That sots tny oai-s ai;Unv. 
And smoU (l»o ivok o( l>urninjr poat 

Aoivss tlio Rolirian snow. 

Hrowning wrote o\' Shelley, who had been dead 
eleven years. 

I'hr air .<<f'»is briijht with Iht/ past prestHce i/t't. 

A similar elTeet of brightness in life and after- 
glow in death. seen\s to have been made on every 
one who knew him by Knpert Brooke. No yonng 
poet of the twentieth century has left such a tlam- 



WILFRID WILSON GIBSON 111 

in^ glory an ho. ''I'ho yjrofatory poom to Mr. CJib- 
Hori'H Friends (1015 IGj, boautifully exjjrebHOH the 
cornniori fVjfjJirig: 

I. (Jo not unflfTHtarif]. 

I only know 

'J'hat JiH ho tumcfJ to (,'o 

And waved his hand 

In liJH younf? cycH a Huddcn ^''"".7 Hhone: 

And r wjiH dazzled by a Hunsot fjlow, 

And he, wan gone. 

T}j(! fin(! Honnots that follow Ktrongthori tho strong 
coh>ur, and aro among tho n^iost authontic claims 
to pootry that thoir author has sot forth. Tho 
second one, contrasting the pale glimmer of the 
Tjondon garret with the brilliant apparition of 
lirooke at the open door, "like sudden April," is 
poignant in its beauty. The versos in this volume 
are richer in melody than is customary with Mr. 
Oibson, yet The Pessimist and The Ice-Cart show 
that he is as whimsical as ever. He has no end 
of fun with his fancy. 

Livelihood (1914-16) takes us back to the bitter 
pessimism of Stonefolds and Daily Bread; only 
instead of being dialogues, those stories are given 
in descriptive form, and for the most part in regu- 
lar pentameter rime. The best of them is In the 
Orchestra, where the poor fiddler in the band at 
the cheap music-hall plays mechanically every 
night for his daily bread, while his heart is torn 
by the vulture of memory. This poem shows a 



112 ADVANCE OF ENOTJSTT POETRY 

finii g-nisp of tlio matorial; ovory word adds soiiio- 
thing- to llio total iiiiprossion. 

Mr. Gibson's constantly repeated pictnros of 
the grinding, sonl-ornshinij;: labonr of the poor 
seem to say J 'accuse! Yet he nowhere says it 
explicitly. He never interrupts his narrative 
with **My Lords and Gentlemen," nor does he 
connnent, like Hood in The Scdhj of tlie SJiirf. 

Yet the etTec.t of his work is an indictment. 
Only, whom does he accuse? Is it the govern- 
ment; is it society; is it God? 

Mr. Gibson's latest book of poems, 11 ill-Tracks 
(1918), differs from his previous works in two 
respects. It is full of pictures of the open tields 
of Northumberland, the county where he Avas 
born; and nearly every piece is an attempt at a 
sing-ing lyric, something seldom found in his Col- 
lected Poors. I say an '^attempt" vni\i delibera- 
tion, for song is not the most natural expression 
of this realistic writer, and not more than half of 
the tifty lyrics in this handsome volume are suc- 
cessfully melodious. Some are trivial, and hardly 
deserve such beauty of type and paper; others, 
however, will be gladly welcomed by all students 
of Mr. Gibson's work, because they exhibit the 
powers of the author in an unusual and charm- 
ing manner. I should think that those familiar 
with the topography and with the colloquialisms 
constantly appearing in this book, would read it 
with a veritable delight of reminiscence. 



WILFRID WILSON GIBSON 113 

NORTHUiMBERLAND 

Heath f.-r] and and bont-land — 
Black land and white, 
God bring^ mo to Northumberland, 
The land of my delight. 

Land of singing waters, 
And winds from off the sea, 
God bring me to Northumberland, 
The land where I would be. 

Hcatherland and bent-land. 
And valleys rich with com, 
God bring me to Northumberland, 
The land where I wa.s bom. 

The shadow of the war darkens nearly every 
page of this volume, and the last poem expresses 
not the local but the universal sentiment of us who 
remain in our homes. 

We who are left, how shall we look again 
Happily on the sun, or feel the rain. 
Without remembering how they who went 
Ungrudgingly, and spent 
Their all for us, loved, too, the sun and rain? 

A bird among the rain-wet lilac sings — 
But we, how shall we turn to little things 
And listen to the birds and winds and streams 
Made holy by tlieir dreams, 
Nor feel the heart-break in the heart of things? 

An interesting feature of the Collected Poems 
is a striking unfinished portrait of the author by 
Mrs. Wise ; but I think it was an error to publish 
all these verses in one volume. They produce an 



114 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETEY 

impression of grey monotony which is hardly fair 
to the poet. The individuals change their names, 
but they pass through the same typical woe of 
childbirth, desertion, loveless old age, incipient 
insanity, with eternal joyless toil. One will form 
a higher opinion if one reads the separate volumes 
as they appeared, and not too much at a time. 

His contribution to the advance of English 
poetry is seen mainly in his grim realism, in his 
direct, unadorned presentation of what he be- 
lieves to be the truth, whether it be the facts of 
environment, or the facts of thought. Conven- 
tional war-poetry, excellently represented by Ten- 
nyson's Charge of the Light Brigade, which itself 
harks back to Drayton's stirring Ballad of Agin- 
court, has not the slightest echo in these volumes ; 
and ordinary songs of labour are equally remote. 
Face to face with Life — that is where the poet 
leads us, and where he leaves us. He is far indeed 
from possessing the splendid lyrical gift of John 
Masefield; he has nothing of the literary quality 
of William Watson. He writes neither of roman- 
tic buccaneers nor of golden old books. But he 
is close to the grimy millions. He writes the short 
and simple annals of the poor. He is a poet of the 
people, and seems to have taken a vow that we 
shall not forget them. 

Ralph Hodgson was born somewhere in Nor- 
thumberland about forty years ago, and success- 
fully eluded the notice of the world until the year 



EALPH HODGSON 115 

1907. He is by nature such a recluse that I feel 
certain he would prefer to attract no attention 
whatever were it not for the fact that it is as 
necessary for a poet to print his songs as it is 
for a bird to sing them. His favourite compan- 
ions are Shelley, Wordsworth, and a bull terrier, 
and he is said to play billiards with ' ' grim earnest- 
ness." In 1907 he published a tiny volume called 
The Last Blackbird, and in 1917 another and 
tinier one called Poems. During this decade he 
printed in a few paper booklets, which some day 
will be valuable curiosities, separate pieces such 
as Eve, The Bull, The Mystery, These are now 
permanently preserved in the 1917 book. This 
thin volume, weighing only two or three ounces, 
is a real addition to the English poetry of the 
twentieth century. 

It is impossible to read the verse of Ralph 
Hodgson without admiration for the clarity of 
his art and respect for the vigour of his mind. 
Although many of his works are as aloof from his 
own opinions as a well-executed statue, the 
strength of his personality is an immanent force. 
He writes much and publishes little; he is an in- 
tellectual aristocrat. He has the fastidiousness 
which was the main characteristic of the tempera- 
ment of Thomas Gray; and he has as well Gray's 
hatred of publicity and much of Gray's lambent 
humour, more salty than satiric. His work is de- 
cidedly caviare to the general, not because it is 
obscure, which it is not, but because it presupposes 



116 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

much background. Lovers of nature and lovers of 
books will love these verses, and reread them many 
times ; but they are not for all markets. No con- 
temporary poet is more truly original than he; 
but his originality is seen in his mental attitude 
rather than in ncAViiess of form or strangeness of 
language. The standard metres are good enough 
for him, and so are the words in connnon use. 
His subjects are the world-old subjects of poetry 
— birds, flowers, men and women. Religion is as 
conspicuously absent as it is in the works of Keats ; 
its place is taken by sympathy for humanity and 
an extraordinary sympathy for animals. He is 
as far from the religious passion of Francis 
Thompson as he is from the sociological inquisi- 
tiveness of Mr. Gibson. To him each bird, each 
flow^er appears as a form of worship. Men and 
women appeal to him not because they are poor or 
downtrodden, but simply because they are men 
and women. He is neither an optimist nor a pes- 
simist; the world is full of objects both interesting 
and beautiful, which will pay a rich return to those 
who observe them accurately. This is as near as 
he has thus far come to any philosophy or any 
theology : 

THE MYSTERY 

He came ami took me by the liand 

Up to a red rose ti^ee. 
He kept His meaning to Himself 

But gave a rose to me. 



RALPH HODGSON 117 

I did not pray Him to lay bare 

The mystery to me, 
Enough the rose was Heaven to smell, 

And His own face to see. 

It is the absolute object that interests this poet, 
rather than vague or futile speculation about it. 
The flower in the crannied wall he would leave 
there. He would never pluck it out, root and all, 
wondering about the mystery of the life principle. 
No poet is more clean-eyed. His eyes are achro- 
matic. He has lost his illusions gladly; every 
time he has lost an illusion he has gained a new 
idea. The world as it is seems to him more beau- 
tiful, more interesting than any false-coloured pic- 
ture of it or any longing to remould it nearer to 
the heart's desire. He faces life with steady com- 
posure. But it is not the composure either of 
stoicism or of despair. He finds it so wonderful 
just as it is that he is thankful that he has eyes 
to see its beauty, ears to hear its melodies — 
enough for his present mortal state. 

AFTER 

"How fared you when you mortal were? 

What did you see on my peopled star?" 
"Oh, well enough," I answered her, 

"It went for me where mortals are ! 

"I saw blue flowers and the merlin's flight 

And the rime on the wintry tree, 
Blue doves I saw and summer light 

On the wings of the cinnamon bee." 



lis ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

There is in all this a kind of reverent worship 
without any trace of mysticism. And still less of 
that modern attitude more popular and surely 
more fruitless than mysticism — detiauco. 

There is a quite different side to tlie poetry ot' 
Mr. Hodgson, which one would hardly suspect 
after reading his outdoor verse. The lamplit 
silence of the library is as charming to him as 
the fragrant silence of the woods. He is as much 
of a recluse among books as he is among tlowers. 
No poet of today seems more self-sufficient. Al- 
though a lover of humanity, he seems to require 
no companionship. He is no more lonely than a 
cat, and has as many resources as Tabby hei-self. 
Now when he talks about books, his poetry be- 
comes intimate, and forsakes all objectivity. 
His humour, a purely intellectual quality with him. 
rises unrestrainedly. 

MY BOOKS 

When the folks have trono to bod. 

And the lamp is Inirninsr low. 
And the tiro burns not so roit 

As it burned an hour ago. 

Then I turn about my obair 

So that I oau dimly seo 
Into the dark oornors -whore 

Lies my modest library. 

Yoluiuos iray and voluiuos irravo, 

Many voluiuos have I jrot; 
Many volumes thouirh I have, 

Manv volumes have I not. 



RALPH HODGSON 119 

I have not tlio rare Lucasta, 

Loudon, 1G49; 
I'm a loan-pursed poetaster, 

Or the hook had long been mine. . . . 

Near the "Wit's Interpreter" 

(Like an antique Whitaker, 
Full of strange etcetera), 

"Areopagitica," 

And the muse of Lycidas, 

Lost in meditation deep, 
Give the cut to lludibnis, 

Unaware the knave's asleep. . . . 

There lies Coleridge, bound in green, 

Sleepily still wond'ring what 
He meant Kubla Khan to mean, 

In that early Wordsworth, Mat. 

Arnold knows a faithful prop, — 

Still to subject-matter leans, 
Murmurs of the loved hill-top, 

Fyfield tree and Cumnor scenes. 

The poem closes with a hii»ii tribute to Shelley, 
''more than all the others mine." 

The following trifle is excellent fooling: 

THE GREAT AUK'S GHOST 

The Great Auk's ghost rose on one leg, 
Sighed thrice and three times winkt, 

And turned and poached a phantom egg, 
And muttered, "I'm extinct." 

But it is in the love of unextinct animals that 
Mr. Hodgson's poetic powers find their most ef- 
fective display. His masterpiece on the old un- 



120 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETEY 

happy Bull is surprisingly impressive; surpris- 
ingly, becmise we almost resent being made to 
feel such ardent sympathy for the poor old Bull, 
when there are so many other and more impor- 
tant objects to be sorry for. Yet the poet draws 
us away for the moment from all the other trag- 
edies in God's universe, and absolutely compels 
our pity for the Bull. The stanzas in this poem 
swaiTQ with life. 

From a certain point of view, poets are justi- 
fied in calling attention to tJie sufferings of our 
animal brothers. For it is the sutl'erings of ani- 
mals, even more than the sorrows of man, that 
check our faith either in the providence or in 
the love of God. Human sutfering may possibly 
be balanced against the spiritual gain it (some- 
times) brings; and at all events, we know that 
there is no road to greatness of character except 
through pain. But what can compensate the 
dumb animals for their physical anguish? It is 
certainly difficult to see their reward, unless they 
have immortal souls. That this is no slight ob- 
stacle in the way of those who earnestly desire to 
believe in an ethical universe, may be seen from 
the fact that it was the sight of a snake swallowing 
a toad that destroyed once for all the religious 
beliefs of Turgenev ; and I know a man of science 
in America who became an agnostic simply from 
observation of a particular Texas fly that bites 
the cattle. The Founder of Christianity recog- 
nized this problem, as He did every other painful 



RALPH HODGSON 121 

fact in life, wliou ITe mado ilio iHunark about the 
sparrow. 

Yet even the pessimists ou^lit not to be quite so 
sure tliat Ood is morally inrorior to man. Kven 
tlieir (Jod may be no more amused by human 
.•iiii;-nish then men are annised by tlie grotesque 
lloppings of a dyin<^ fish. 

The villains in the world are those who have 
no respect for the personality of birds and beasts. 
And their cruelty to animals is not deliberate or 
vindictive — it arises from crass stupidity. 

STUPIDITY STREET 

I saw with open eyes 

Sinj;in{? birds sweet 
Sold in the shops 

For the people to eat, 
Sold in the shops of 

Stupidity Street. 

I saw in vision 

The worm in the wheat, 
And in the shops nothing 

For jjoople to eat; 
Nothin{? for sale in 

Stupidity Street. 

The poet's attitude toward the lion in the jun- 
<2:le, the bull in the field, the cat in the yard, the bird 
on the tree is not one of affectionate petting, for 
love and sympathy are often min^-led — consciously 
or unconsciously— wi til condescension. There is 
no trace of condescension in the way Mr. Hodg- 
son writes of animals. He treats them with re- 



l:::! AD^•AXCI^ OF ENGLISH TOETKY 

speot, and not only hates to soo thorn hurt, ho 
hates to soo tlioir dignity outragod. 

THE BELLS OF HKAVEN 

Twould ring: the WUs of Hoavon 
The wildest peal for vejvrs. 
If Parson lost his senses 
And pei-iple Oiuue to theirs. 
And he and they toirether 
Knelt down with aiiirry prayers 
For tanunl and shabby titrers 
And daneinc: docs and Wars. 
And wretohetl. blind pit ponies. 
And httle hunted hares. 

I oonfoss that I have of ton felt a sonso of shamo 
for humanity whon I haA'o obsorvod mon and 
women staring through the bars at the splendid 
Afrieim cats in cages, and have also observed that 
their foolish stare is returned by the lion or tiger 
with a dull look of intinito boredom. Xor is it 
pleasant to soo small boys pushing sticks through 
the safe bars, in an endeavour to irritate the royal 
captives. One remembers Browning's superb lion 
in The Glove, whom tlie knight was able to ap- 
proacli in safety, because the regal beast was com- 
pletely lost in thought — ho was homesick for the 
desert, oblivious o^ the little mau-king and his 
duodecimo court. 

Although the total production of Ralph Hodg- 
son is slight in quantity, the percentage of excel- 
lence is remarkably high. The reason for this is 
clear. Instead of printing everything he writes, 
and leaving the employment of the croam-sepa- 



LASCELLES ABERCROMBIE 123 

rator to his readers, he gives to the public only 
what has passed his own severe scrutiny. He is 
a true poet, with an original mind. 

As for the work of Lascelles Abcrcrombie, which 
has been nuicli praised in certain circles, I should 
prefer to leave the criticism of that to those who 
enjoy reading it. If I should attempt to "do 
justice" to his poetry, I should seem to his friends 
to be doing just the opposite — the opposite of just. 



CTTAPTEK V 

PKOOKE. FUKOKHK, DE 1^\. M.VK.K, AND OTBTKRS 

Kuport Brvx^ko — h persk^nalitv — tlio spirit of youtli — his hor- 
n^r at oUi airt^ — Henry Jainosi's tributo — his oiiuoation — a 
jronius — his pooius of doatli — his tvfftvtixi oynioisui — his nature 
pi^ems — \<ar s«.ninoti> — his supivmo s^toritioo — his eliarmius: 
humour — his mastorpieiv. i7niHtch<\<tc^r. — ,laiut>s Finn- FUvker 
— the txlitorial work of ^[r. Squiiv — uo posthumous puffery — 
the case of Crashaw — Ufo of Flecker — lus foudut^ for iv^ 
vision — his friendship with Rupert Brvx^ke — his skill as a 
translator — his austerity — art fv^r art's saki^ — Ids "Ivrijrhtnt^s" 
— love of Orwk mythology — steady mental development — his 
detiuition of the aim of poetry. — Walter De I-s Mare — the 
poet of shadow — Hawthorne's tales — his persistence — his r^ 
tUvtive mixnl — Ids dt^eriptive style — his Shakespe;vre oharae- 
ters — his sketches frvnu life. — D. H. Lc^wrence — his lack of 
discipline — ^his subjecti\-ity — iilvsence of reser\-e — a ma^iter of 
^vlour — his ^hvriusr excesses, — John Drinkwater — the west of 
Fncland — his healthy spirit. — TV. H. Da^-ies — the tramp poet, 
— F.dwanl Thomas — ^is death — c^rviriiialiiy of his work. — Rob- 
ert Nichols — Willoivchby Weaviusr. — The younc Oxfoi\l pivts, 

Kuport Brooke loft tlio world in a chariot of fire. 
He was soinetliinir more than either a man or a 
poet : he was and is a Personality. It was as a 
Personality that he dazzled his friends. lie was 
ovorfiowing with tremendous, contagious vitality. 
He was the inc;\rnation of the spirit of yonth, 
wearinir the glamour and glory of youth like a 
sliining garment. Despite our loss, it almost 
seems tittiiig that he did not live to that old age 

124 



lUTPERT BROOKE 125 

■which ho iiovcr uiulorsiood, for which ho liad such 
little sympathy, and which ho seems to have liated 
more than death. For he had the splendid in- 
solence of youth. Youth connnonly feels lii^h- 
spirited in an unconscious, instinctive fashion, like 
a kitten or a puppy; but Kupert Brooke was as 
self-consciously young as a decrepit pensioner is 
self-consciously old. He rejoiced in the strength 
of his youth, and rolled it as a sweet morsel un- 
der his tongue. Me was so glad to be young, and 
to know every morning on rising from sleep that 
he was still young ! Plis passionate love of beauty 
made him see in old age only ugliness; he could 
not foresee the joys of the mellow years. All he 
saw consisted of grey hairs, wrinkles, double 
chins, paunches. To him all old people were 
Struldbrugs. We smile at the insolence of youth, 
because we know it will pass with the beauty and 
strength that support it. Ogiiiben says, "Youth, 
with its beauty and grace, would seem bestowed 
on us for some such reason as to make us partly 
endurable till we have time for really becoming 
so of ourselves, without their aid; when they leave 
us . . . little by little, he sees fit to forego claim 
after claim on the w^orld, puts up with a less and 
loss share of its good as his proper portion; and 
when the octogenarian asks barely a sup of gruel 
and a fire of dry sticks, and thanks you as for his 
full allowance and right in the common good of 
life, — hoping nobody may murder him, — he who 
began by asking and expecting the whole of us 



126 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETEY 

to bow down in worship to him, — why, I say he is 
advanced. ' ' 

Henry James — whose affectionate tribute in the 
preface to Brooke's Letters is impressive testi- 
mony — saw in the brilliant youth, besides the ac- 
cident of genius, a perfect illustration of the high- 
est type of Englishman, bred in the best English 
way, in the best traditions of English scholarship, 
and adorned with the good sense, fine temper, and 
healthy humour of the ideal Anglo-Saxon. He in- 
deed enjoyed every possible advantage ; like Mil- 
ton and Browning, had he been intended for a 
poet from the cradle, his bringing-up could not 
have been better adapted to the purpose. He was 
born at Rugby, on the third of August, 1887, where 
his father was one of the masters in the famous 
school. He won a poetry prize there in 1905. 
The next year he entered King's College, Cam- 
bridge; his influence as an undergraduate was 
notable. He took honours in classics, went abroad 
to study in Munich, and returned to Grrantchester, 
which he was later to celebrate in his best poem. 
He had travelled somewhat extensively on the 
Continent, and in 1913 went on a journey through 
the United States and Canada to the South Seas. 
I am glad he saw the Hawaiian Islands, for no one 
should die before beholding that paradise. At 
the outbreak of war, he enlisted, went to Antwerp, 
and later embarked on the expedition to the 
Dardanelles. He was bitten by a fly, and died of 
bloodpoisoning on a French hospital ship, the day 



RUPERT BROOKE 127 

being Shakespeare's, the twenty-third of April, 
1915. He was buried on a Greek island. 

Rupert Brooke lived to be nearly twenty-eight 
years old, a short life to show ability in most of 
the ways of the world, but long enough to test the 
quality of a poet, not merely in promise, but in 
performance. There is no doubt that he had the 
indefinable but unmistakable touch of genius. 
Only a portion of his slender production is of 
high rank, but it is enough to preserve his name. 
His Letters, which have been underestimated, 
prove that he had mental as well as poetical pow- 
ers. Had he lived to middle age, it seems certain 
that his poetry would have been tightly packed 
with thought. He had an alert and inquisitive 
mind. 

Many have seemed to think that the frequent 
allusions to death in his poetry are vaguely proph- 
etic. They are, of course — with the exception of 
the war-poems — nothing of the kind, being merely 
symptomatic of youth. They form the most con- 
ventional side of his work. His cynicism toward 
the love of the sexes was a youthful affectation, 
strengthened by his reading. He was deeply read 
in the seventeenth-century poets, who delighted in 
imagining themselves passing from one woman 
to another — swearing *'by love's sweetest part, 
variety." At all events, these poems, of which 
there are comparatively many, exhibit his least 
attractive side. The poem addressed to The One 
Before the Last, ends 



128 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

Oh ! bitter thoughts I had in plenty, 

But here's the worst of it — 
I shall forget, in Nineteen-twenty, 

You ever hurt a bit! 

He was perhaps, too young to understand two 
great truths — that real love can exist in the midst 
of wild passion, and that the best part of it can 
and often does survive the early flames. Such 
poems as Menelaus and Helen, Jealousy, and oth- 
ers, profess a profound knowledge of life that is 
really a profound ignorance. 

His pictures of nature, while often beautiful, 
lack the penetrative quality seen so constantly in 
Wordsworth and Browning; these greater poets 
saw nature not only with their eyes, but with their 
minds. Their representations glow with enduring 
beauty, but they leave in the spectator something 
even greater than beauty, something that is food 
for reflection and imagination, the source of quick- 
coming fancies. Compare the picture of the pines 
in Brooke's poem Pine-Trees and the Sky: Eve- 
ning, with Browning's treatment of an identical 
theme in Paracelsus, remembering that Brown- 
ing's lines were written when he was twenty- two 
years old. Brooke writes, 

Then from the sad west turning wearily, 
I saw the pines against the white north sky, 

Very beautiful, and still, and bending over 
Their sharp black heads against a quiet sky. 

Browning writes, 



EUPERT BROOKE 129 

The herded pines commune, and have deep thoughts, 2 
A secret they assemble to discuss. 
When the sun drops behind their trunks which glare 
Like grates of hell. 

Both in painting and in imagination the second 
passage is instantly seen to be superior. 

The war sonnets of 1914 receive so much addi- 
tional poignancy by the death of the author that it 
is difficult, and perhaps undesirable, to judge them 
as objective works of art. They are essentially 
noble and sincere, speaking from the depths of 
high-hearted self-sacrifice. He poured out his 
young life freely and generously, knowing what 
it meant to say good-bye to his fancy. There is 
always something eternally sublime — something 
that we rightly call divine — in the spendthrift giv- 
ing of one's life-blood for a great cause. And 
Rupert Brooke was intensely aware of the value 
of what he unhesitatingly gave. 

The two ''fish" poems exhibit a playful, charm- 
ing side to Brooke's imagination; but if I could 
have only one of his pieces, I should assuredly 
choose Grantchester. Nostalgia is the mother of 
much fine poetry; but seldom has the expression 
of it been mingled more exquisitely with humour 
and longing. By the rivers of Babylon he sat 
down and laughed when he remembered Zion. 
And his laughter at Babylon is so different from 
his laughter at Grantchester. A few felicitous 
adjectives sum up the significant difference be- 



130 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

tween Germany and England. Writing in a Ber- 
lin cafe, he says : 

Here tulips bloom as they are told ; 

Unkempt about those hedges blows 

An English unofficial rose; 

And there the unregulated sun 

Slopes down to rest when day is done, 

And wakes a vague unpunetual star, 

A slippered Hesper; and there are 

Meads toward Haslingfield and Coton 

Where das Betreten's not verboten. . . . 

Oh, is the water sweet and cool, 

Gentle and brown, above the pool? 

And laughs the immortal river still 

Under the mill, under the mill? 

Say, is there Beauty yet to find? 

And Certainty? and Quiet kind? 

Deep meadows yet, for to forget 

The lies, and truths, and pain? ... oh! yet 

Stands the Church clock at ten to three? 

And is there honey still for tea? 

When Hamlet died, he bequeathed his reputa- 
tion to Horatio, the official custodian of his good 
name. He could not have made a better choice. 
Would that all poets who die young were equally 
fortunate in their posthumous editors ! For there 
are some friends who conceive it to be their duty 
to print every scrap of written paper the bard 
left behind him, even if they have to act as scaven- 
gers to find the ''remains"; and there are others 
who think affection and admiration for the dead 
are best shown by adopting the methods and the 
language of the press-agent. To my mind, the pi- 
OUS memoir of Tennyson is injured by the inclu- 



JAMES ELROY FLECKER 131 

sion of a long list of "testimonials," which assure 
us that Alfred Tennyson was a remarkable poet. 
Mr. J. C. Squire, under whose auspices the works 
of Flecker appear in one handsome volume, is an 
admirable editor. His introduction is a model of 
its kind, giving the necessary biographical in- 
formation, explaining the chronology, the origin, 
the background of the poems, and showing how 
the poet revised his earlier work; the last para- 
graph ought to serve as an example to those who 
may be entrusted with a task of similar delicacy 
in the future. *'My only object in writing this 
necessarily rather disjointed Introduction is to 
give some information that may interest the 
reader and be useful to the critic; and if a few 
personal opinions have slipped in they may con- 
veniently be ignored. A vehement 'puff prelim- 
inary' is an insolence in a volume of this kind; 
it might pardonably be supposed to imply either 
doubts about the author or distrust of his read- 
ers." 

As a contrast to the above, it is interesting to 
recall the preface that an anonymous friend con- 
tributed to a volume of Crashaw's verse in the 
seventeenth century, which, in his own words, ''I 
have impartially writ of this Learned young 
Gent." Fearing that readers might not appre- 
ciate his poetry at its true value, the friend writes, 
*'It were prophane but to mention here in the 
Preface those under-headed Poets, Retainers to 
seven shares and a halfe; Madrigall fellowes, 



132 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETEY 

whose onely business in verse, is to rime a poore 
six-penny soule a Suburb sinner into hell; — May 
such arrogant pretenders to Poetry vanish, with 
their prodigious issue of tumorous heats, and 
flashes of their adulterate braines, and for ever 
after, may this our Poet fill up the better roome 
of man. Oh! when the generall arraignment of 
Poets shall be, to give an accompt of their higher 
soules, with what a triumphant brow shall our 
divine Poet sit above, and looke downe upon poore 
Homer, Virgil, Horace, Claudian; &c. who had 
amongst them the ill lucke to talke out a great part 
of their gallant Genius, upon Bees, Dung, froggs, 
and Gnats, &c. and not as himself here, upon Scrip- 
tures, divine Graces, Martyrs and Angels." Our 
prefatory friend set a pace that it is hopeless for 
modern champions to follow, and they might as 
well abandon the attempt. 

James Elroy Flecker, the eldest child of the 
Kev. Dr. Flecker, who is Head Master of an Eng- 
lish school, was born on the fifth of November, 
1884, in London. He spent five years at Trinity 
College, Oxford, and later studied Oriental lan- 
guages at Caius College, Cambridge. He went to 
Constantinople in 1910. In that same year signs 
of tuberculosis appeared, but after some months 
at an English sanatorium, he seemed to be abso- 
lutely well. In 1911 he was in Constantinople, 
Smyrna, and finally in Athens, where he was mar- 
ried to Miss Skiadaressi, a Greek. In March the 
dreaded illness returned, and the rest of his short 



JAMES ELROY FLECKER 133 

life was spent in the vain endeavour to recover his 
health. He died in Switzerland, on the third of 
January, 1915, at the age of thirty. ''I cannot 
help remembering," says Mr. Squire, "that I first 
heard the news over the telephone, and that the 
voice which spoke was Rupert Brooke's." 

He had published four books of verse and four 
books of prose, leaving many poems, essays, short 
stories, and two plays, in manuscript. All his 
best poetry is now included in the Collected Poems 
(1916). 

Flecker had the Tennysonian habit of continu- 
ally revising ; and in this volume we are permitted 
to see some of the interesting results of the pro- 
cess. I must say, however, that of the two ver- 
sions of Tenebris Interlucentem, although the sec- 
ond is called a '^drastic improvement," I prefer 
the earlier. Any poet might- be proud of either. 

Flecker liked the work of Mr. Yeats, of Mr. 
Housman, of Mr. De La Mare ; and Rupert Brooke 
was an intimate friend, for the two young men 
were together at Cambridge. He wrote a sonnet 
on Francis Thompson, though he was never af- 
fected by Thompson's literary manner. Indeed, 
he is singularly free from the influence of any of 
the modern poets. His ideas and his style are 
his own ; he thought deeply on the art of writing, 
and was given to eager and passionate discussion 
of it with those who had his confidence. His 
originality is the more remarkable when we re- 
member his fondness for translating verse from a 



134 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

variety of foreign languages, ancient and modern. 
He was an excellent translator. His skill in this 
art can only be inferred where we know nothing 
at first hand of the originals; but his version of 
Goethe's immortal lyric is proof of his powers. 
The only blemish — an unavoidable one — is "far" 
and ''father" in the last two lines. 

Knowest thou the land where bloom the lemon trees? 

And darkly gleam the golden oranges'? 

A gentle wind blows down from that blue sky; 

Calm stands the myrtle and the laurel high. 

Knowest thou the land? So far and fair! 

Thou, whom I love, and I will wander there. 

Knowest thou the house with all its rooms aglow. 
And shining hall and columned portico? 
The marble statues stand and look at me. 
Alas, poor child, what have they done to thee? 
Knowest thou the land? So far and fair. 
My Guardian, thou and I will wander there. 

Knowest thou the mountain with its bridge of cloud? 
The mule plods warily: the white mists crowd. 
Coiled in tlieir eaves the brood of dragons sleep; 
The torrent hurls the rock from steep to steep. 
Knowest thou the land? So far and fair. 
Father, away ! Our road is over there ! 

Fletcher was more French than English in his 
dislike of romanticism, sentimentalism, intimate, 
and confessional poetry; and of course he was 
strenuously opposed to contemporary standards 
in so far as they put correct psychology above 
beauty. Much contemporary verse reads and 
sounds like undisciplined thinking out loud, where 



JAMES ELROY FLECKER 135 

each poet feels it imperative to tell the reader in 
detail not only all his adventures, and passions, 
but even the most minute whimsies and caprices. 
When the result of this bosom-cleansing is real 
poetry, it justifies itself ; but the method is the ex- 
act opposite of Flecker 's. His master was Keats, 
and in his own words, he wrote ''with the single 
intention of creating beauty." Austerity and ob- 
jectivity were his ideals. 

Strangely enough, he was able to state in a 
new and more convincing way the doctrine of art 
for art's sake. ''However few poets have written 
with a clear theory of art for art's sake, it is by 
that theory alone that their work has been, or can 
be, judged; — and rightly so if we remember that 
art embraces all life and all humanity, and sees 
in the temporary and fleeting doctrines of con- 
servative or revolutionary only the human gran- 
deur or passion that inspires them." 

Perhaps the best noun that describes Flecker 's 
verse is brightness. He had a consumptive 's long- 
ing for sunshine, and his sojourns on the Mediter- 
ranean shores illuminate his pages. The follow- 
ing poem is decidedly characteristic : 

IN Pm^ACIA 

Had I that haze of streaming blue, 
That sea below, the summer faced, 

I'd work and weave a dress for you 
And kneel to clasp it round your waist, 

And broider with those burning bright 
Threads of the Sun across the sea, 



136 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

And bind it with the silver light 
That wavers in the olive tree. 

Had I the gold that like a river 

Pours through our garden, eve by eve, 
Our garden that goes on for ever 

Out of the world, as we believe; 
Had I that glory on the vine 

That splendour soft on tower and town, 
I'd forge a crown pf that sunshine, 

And break before your feet the crown. 

Through the great pinewood I have been 

An hour before the lustre dies. 
Nor have such forest-colours seen 

As those that glimmer in your eyes. 
Ah, misty woodland, down whose deep 

And twilight paths I love to stroll 
To meadows quieter than sleep 

And pools more secret than the soul! 

Could I but steal that awful throne 

Ablaze with dreams and songs and stars 
Where sits Night, a man of stone. 

On the frozen mountain spars 
I'd cast him down, for he is old, 

And set my Lady there to rule. 
Gowned with silver, crowned with gold. 

And in her eyes the forest pool. 

It seems to me improbable that Flecker will be 
forgotten; he was a real poet. But a remark 
made of Tennyson is still more applicable to 
Flecker. ''He was an artist before he was a 
poet." Even as a small boy, he had astonish- 
ing facility, but naturally wrote little worth pre- 
serval. The Collected Poems show an extraordi- 
nary command of his instrument. He had the 



JAMES ELROY FLECKER 137 

orthodox virtues of the orthodox poet — rime and 
rhythm, cunning in words, skill in nature-painting, 
imagination. The richness of his colouring and 
the loveliness of his melodies make his verses a 
delight to the senses. His mind was plentifully- 
stored with classical authors, and he saw nature 
alive with old gods and fairies. In one of his 
most charming poems, Oak and Olive, he declares, 

When I go down the Gloucester lanes 
My friends are deaf and blind: 

Fast as they turn their foolish eyes 
The Maenads leap behind, 

And when I hear the fire-winged feet, 
They only hear the wind. 

Have I not chased the fluting Pan, 
Through Cranham's sober trees? 

Have I not sat on Painswiek Hill 
With a nymph upon my knees, 

And she as rosy as the dawn, 
And naked as the breeze? 

His poetry is composed of sensations rather 
than thoughts. What it lacks is intellectual con- 
tent. A richly packed memory is not the same 
thing as original thinking, even when the memo- 
ries are glorified by the artist's own imagination. 
Yet the death of this young man was a cruel loss 
to English literature, for his mental development 
would eventually have kept pace with his gift of 
song. His cheerful Paganism would, I think, have 
given place to something deeper and more fruit- 
ful. Before he went to Constantinople, he had, 
as it is a fashion for some modern Occidentals to 



138 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

have, a great admiration for Mohammedanism. 
A friend reports a rather naive remark of his, 
''his intercourse with Mohammedans had led him 
to find more good in Christianity than he had 
previously suspected." I have sometimes won- 
dered whether a prolonged residence among Mo- 
hammedans might not temper the enthusiasm of 
those who so loudly insist on the superiority of 
that faith to Christianity. Mr. Santayana speaks 
somewhere of ''the unconquerable mind of the 
East. " Well, my guess is that this unconquerable 
mind will some day be conquered by the Man of 
Nazareth, just as I think He will eventually — 
some centuries ahead — conquer even us. 

Flecker died so soon after the opening of the 
Great War tkat it is vain to surmise w^hat the 
effect of that struggle would have been upon his 
soul. That it would have shaken him to the 
depths — and perhaps given him the spiritual ex- 
perience necessary for his further advance — seems 
not improbable. One of his letters on the subject 
contains the significant remark, "What a race of 
deep-eyed and thoughtful men we shall have in 
Europe — now that all those millions have been 
baptized in fire!" 

The last stanza of his poem A Sacred Dialogue 
reads as follows: 

Then the black cannons of the Lord 

Sliall wake crnsadinj2: fjfhosts 
And the Milky Way shall swing like a sword 

When Jerusalem vomits its horde 



FLECKER AND DE LA MARE 139 

On the Christmas Day preferred of the Lord, 
The Christmas Day of the Hosts! 

He appended a footnote in December, 1914, when 
he was dying: "Originally written for Christ- 
mas, 1912, and referring to the first Balkan War, 
this poem contains in the last speech of Christ 
words that. ring like a prophecy of events that may 
occur very soon." As I am copying his Note, 
December, 1917, the English army is entering 
Jerusalem. 

Flecker was essentially noble-minded ; and with- 
out any trace of conceit, felt the responsibility of 
his talents. There is not an unworthy page in 
the Collected Poems. In a memorable passage, 
ho stated the goal of poetry. "It is not the poet's 
business to save man's soul, but to make it worth 
saving." 

Walter De La Mare, a close personal friend of 
Rupert Brooke, came of Huguenot, English and 
Scotch ancestry, and was born at Charlton, Kent, 
on the twenty-fifth of April, 1873. He was edu- 
cated at St. Paul's Cathedral Choir School. Al- 
though known today exclusively as a poet, he has 
written much miscellaneous prose — critical arti- 
cles for periodicals, short stories, and a few plays. 
His first poetry-book. Songs of Childhood, ap- 
peared in 1902; in 1906, Poems; in 1910, The Re- 
turn, which won the Edmond de Polignac prize; 
The Listeners, which gave him a wide reputation, 
appeared in 1912 ; Peacock Pie, in 1917, and Mot- 
ley and Other Poems in 1918. When, in Novem- 



140 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

ber, 1916, the Howland Memorial Prize at Yale 
University was formally awarded to the work of 
Rupert Brooke, it was officially received in New 
Haven by Walter De La Mare, who came from 
England for the purpose. 

If Flecker 's poems were written in a glare of 
light, Mr. De La Mare's shy Muse seems to live 
in shadow. It is not at all the shadow of grief, 
still less of bitterness, but rather the cool, grate- 
ful shade of retirement. I can find no words any- 
where that so perfectly express to my mind the 
atmosphere of these poems as the language used 
by Hawthorne to explain the lack of excitement 
that readers would be sure to notice in his tales. 
' ' They have the pale tint of flowers that blossom 
in too retired a shade, — the coolness of a medita- 
tive habit, which diffuses itself through the feel- 
ing and observation of every sketch. Instead of 
passion there is sentiment; and, even in what 
purport to be pictures of actual life, we have al- 
legory, not always so warmly dressed in its habili- 
ments of flesh and blood as to be taken into the 
reader's mind without a shiver. Whether from 
lack of power, or an uncontrollable reserve, the 
author's touches have often an effect of tame- 
ness. . . . The book, if you would see anything 
in it, requires to be read in the clear, brown, twi- 
light atmosphere in which it was written; if 
opened in the sunshine, it is apt to look exceed- 
ingly like a volume of blank pages." 

Hawthorne is naturally not popular today with 



WALTER DE LA MARE 141 

readers whose sole acquaintance with the art of 
the short story is gleaned from magazines that 
adorn the stalls at railway-stations ; and to those 
whose taste in poetry begins and ends with melo- 
drama, who prefer the hoarse cry of animal pas- 
sion to the still, sad music of humanity, it would 
not be advisable to recommend a poem like The 
Listeners, where the people are ghosts and the 
sounds only echoes. Yet there are times when it 
would seem that every one must weary of strident 
voices, of persons shouting to attract attention, 
of poets who capitalize both their moral and liter- 
ary vices, of hawking advertisers of the latest 
verse-novelties; then a poem like The Listeners 
reminds us of Lindsay 's bird, whose simple melody 
is not defeated by the blatant horns. 

Decidedly a poet must have both courage and 
faith to hold himself so steadily aloof from the 
competition of the market-place; to work with 
such easy cheerfulness in his quiet corner; to re- 
main so manifestly unaffected by the swift cur- 
rents of contemporary verse. For fifteen years 
he has gone on producing his own favourite kind 
of poetry, dealing with children, with flowers, with 
autumn and winter, with ghosts of memory, with 
figures in literature, and has finally obtained a 
respectable audience without once raising his 
voice. He has written surprisingly Httle love 
poetry; the notes of passion, as we are accus- 
tomed to hear them, seldom sound from his lute ; 
nor do we hear the agonizing cries of doubt, re- 



142 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

morse, or despair. There is nothing turbulent 
and nothing truculent; he has made no contribu- 
tion to the literature of revolt. Yet many of his 
poems make an irresistible appeal to our more 
reflective moods ; and once or twice, his fancy, al- 
ways winsome and wistful, rises to a height of 
pure imagination, as in The Listeners — which I 
find myself returning to muse over again and 
again. 

His studies of humanity — both from observa- 
tion and from books — are descriptive rather than 
dramatic. I do not know a contemporary poet 
whose published works contain so few quotation 
marks. The dramatic monologue, w^hich Emer- 
son back in the 'forties prophesied would be the 
highest class of poetry in the immediate future 
(which prophecy was fulfilled), does not interest 
Mr. De La Mare ; maybe he feels that it has been 
done so well that he prefers to let it alone. His 
remarkable thirteen poems dealing with Shake- 
spearean characters — where he attempts with con- 
siderable success to pluck out the heart of the 
mystery — are all descriptive. Perhaps the most 
original and beautiful of these is 

MERCUTIO 

Along nn avenue of almond-trees 

Came three p:irls cliatterinf!: of tlieir sweethearts three. 

And lo! Moreutio, Avitli B>Tonie ease, 

Out of his ]ihilosophie eye cast all 

A mere flow'r'd twi": of thougfht, whereat, . . . 

Three hearts fell still as W'hen an air dies out 

And Venus falters lonely o'er the sea. 



WALTER DE LA MARE 143 

But when within the further mist of bloom 

His step and form were hid, tlie smooth chihl Ann 

Said, "La, and what eyes he liad !" and Lucy said, 

"How sad a gentleman !" and Katharine, 

"I wonder, now, what mischief he was at." 

And these three also April hid away, 

Leaving the spring faint with Mercutio. 

There are immense tracts of Shakespeare which 
Walter De La Mare never could even have re- 
motely imitated ; but I know of no poet today who 
could approach the wonderful Queen Mab speech 
more successfully than he. 

The same method of interpretative description 
that he employs in dealing with Shakespearean 
characters he uses repeatedly in making portraits 
from life. "One of the most vivid and delightful 
of these is 

OLD SUSAN 

When Susan's work was done she'd sit, 
With one fat guttering candle lit. 
And window opened wide to win 
The sweet night air to enter in; 
There, with a thumb to keep her place 
She'd read, with stern and wrinkled face, 
Her mild eyes gliding very slow 
Across the letters to and fro. 
While wagged the guttering candle flame 
In the wind that through the window came. 
And sometimes in the silence she 
Would mumble a sentence audibly, 
Or shake her head as if to say, 
"You silly souls, to act this way!" 
And never a sound from night I'd hear, 
Unless some far-off cock crowed clear; 
Or her old shuffling thumb should turn 



144 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

Another page; and rapt and stem, 

Through her great glasses bent on me 

She'd glance into reality; 

And shake her round old silvery head, 

With — "You! — I thought you was in bed!" — 

Only to tilt her book again, 

And rooted in Romance remain. 

I am afraid that Rupert Brooke could not have 
written a poem like Old Susan; he would have 
made her ridiculous and contemptible; he would 
have accentuated physical defects so that she 
would have been a repugnant, even an offensive, 
figure. But Mr. De La Mare has the power — 
possessed in the supreme degree by J. M. Barrie 
— of taking just such a person as Old Susan, living 
in a world of romance, and making us smile with 
no trace of contempt and with no descent to pity. 
One who can do this loves his fellow-men. 

Poems like Old Susan prepare us for one of the 
most happy exhibitions of Mr. De La Mare's tal- 
ent — his verses written for and about children. 
Every household ought to have that delightful 
quarto, delightfully and abundantly illustrated, 
called Peacock Pie: A Booh of Rhymes. With 
Illustrations hy W. Heath Robinson. There is a 
picture for each poem, and the combination de- 
mands and will obtain an unconditional surrender. 

If the poetry of James Flecker and Walter De 
La Mare live after them, it will not be because 
of sensational qualities, in matter or in manner. 
Fancy is bred either in the heart or in the head 
— and the best poetry should touch either one or 



D. H. LAWRENCE 145 

the other or both. Mr. De La Mare owes his pres- 
ent eminence simply to merit — his endeavour has 
been to write just as well as he possibly could. 
His limit has been downward, not upward. He 
may occasionally stril^e over the heads of his 
audience, for his aim is never low. 

The poetry of D. H. Lawrence (born 1885) 
erupts from the terrible twenties. In spite of his 
school experience, he has never sent his mind to 
school ; he hates discipline. He has an undeniable 
literary gift, which has met — as it ought to — with 
glad recognition. He has strength, he has ferv- 
our, he has passion. But while his strength is 
sometimes the happy and graceful play of rippling 
muscles, it is often contortion. If Mr. De La 
Mare may seem too delicate, too restrained, Mr. 
Lawrence cares comparatively little for delicacy; 
and the word restraint is not in his bright lexicon. 
In other words, he is aggressively '* modem." 
He is one of the most skilful manipulators of free 
verse — he can drive four horses abreast, and some- 
how or other reach the goal. 

He sees his OAvn turbulent heart reflected storm- 
ily in every natural spectacle. He observes flow- 
ers in an anti-Wordsworthian way. He mentions 
with appreciation roses, lilies, snapdragons, but 
to him they are all passion-flowers. And yet — if 
he only knew it — his finest work is in a subdued 
mood. He is a master of colouring — and I like his 
quieter work as a painter better than his feverish, 
hectic cries of desire. Despite his dialect poems. 



146 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

he is more successful at description than at drama. 
I imagine Miss Harriet Monroe may think so too ; 
it seems to me she has done well in selecting his 
verses, to give three out of the five from his 
colour-pieces, of which perhaps the best is 

SERVICE OF ALL THE DEAD 

Between the avenue of cypresses, 
All in their scarlet capes and surplices 
Of linen, go the chaunting choristers, 
The priests in gold and black, the villagers. 

And all along the path to the cemetery 
The round dark heads of men crowd silently; 
And black-scarfed faces of women-folk wistfully 
Watch at the banner of death, and the mystery. 

And at the foot of a grave a father stands 
With sunken head and forgotten, folded hands; 
And at the foot of a grave a mother kneels 
With pale shut face, nor neither hears nor feels. 

The coming of the chaunting choristers 
Between the avenue of cypresses, 
The silence of the many villagers, 
The candle-flames beside the surplices. 

(Remember the English pronunciation of ''ceme- 
tery" is not the common American one.) He is 
surely better as a looker-on at life than when he 
tries to present the surging passions of an aotor- 
in-chief. Then his art is full of sound and fury, 
and instead of being thrilled, we are, as Stevenson 
said of Whitman's poorer poems, somewhat inde- 
corously amused. All poets, I suppose, are 
thrilled by their own work ; they read it to them- 



D. H. LAWRENCE 147 

selves with shudders of rapture; but it is only 
when this frisson is felt by others than blood- 
relatives that they may feel some reasonable as- 
surance of success. The London Times quite 
properly refuses to surrender to lines like these: 

And if I never see her again? 

I think, if they told me so, 

I could convulse the heavens with my horror. 

I think I could alter the frame of things in my agony. 

I think I could break the System with my heart. 

I think, in my convulsion, the skies would break. 

He should change his gear from high to low; he 
will never climb Parnassus on this speed, not even 
with his muffler so manifestly open. 

The Times also quotes without appreciation 
from the same volume the following passage, 
where the woman, looking back, stirs a biblical 
reminiscence. 

I have seen it, felt it in my mouth, my throat, my chest, my 
belly, 

Burning of powerful salt, burning, eating through my defence- 
less nakedness, 

I have been thrust into white sharp crystals, 

Writhing, twisting, superpenetrated, 

Ah, Lot's wife, Lot's wife! 

The pillar of salt, the whirling, horrible column of salt, like 
a waterspout 

That has enveloped me! 

Most readers may not need a whole pillar, but 
they will surely take the above professions cum 
grano sails. It is all in King Cambyses' vein; 
and I would that we had Pistol to deliver it. I 



148 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

cite it here, not for the graceless task of showing 
Mr. Lawrence at his worst, but because such stuff 
is symptomatic of many of the very *'new" poets, 
who wander, as Turgenev expressed it, ^'aimless 
but declamatory, over the face of our long-suffer- 
ing mother earth. ' ' 

John Drinkwater, bom on the first of June, 
1882, has had varied experiences both in business 
and in literature, and is at present connected with 
the management of the Birmingham Repertory 
Theatre. Actively engaged in commercial life, 
he has found time to publish a number of volumes 
of poems, plays in verse, critical works in prose, 
and a long string of magazine articles. He has 
wisely collected in one volume — though I regret 
the omission of Malvern Lyrics — the best of his 
poems that had previously appeared in four sepa- 
rate works, containing the cream of his production 
from 1908 to 1914. His preface to this little book, 
published in 1917, is excellent in its manly modesty. 
''Apart from the Cromwell poem itself, the pres- 
ent selection contains all that I am anxious to pre- 
serve from those volumes, and there is nothing be- 
fore 1908 which I should wish to be reprinted now 
or at any time." One of the earlier books had 
been dedicated to John Masefield, to whom in the 
present preface the author pays an affectionate 
compliment — ''John Masefield, who has given a 
poet's praise to work that I hope he likes half as 
well as I like his. ' ^ 



JOHN DRINKWATER 149 

The first poem, Symbols, prepares the reader 
for what is to follow, though it is somewhat lack- 
ing in the technique that is characteristic of most 
of Mr. Drinkwater's verse. 

I saw history in a poet's song, 

In a river-reach and a gallows-hill, 
In a bridal bed, and a secret wrong. 

In a crown of thorns: in a daffodil. 

I imagined measureless time in a day, 

And starry space in a wagon-road. 
And the treasure of all good harvests lay 

In the single seed that the sower sowed. 

My garden-wind had driven and havened again 
All ships that ever had gone to sea, 

And I saw the glory of all dead men 

In the shadow that went by the side of me. 

The West of England looms large in contem- 
porary poetry. A. E. Housman, John Masefield, 
W. W. Gibson, J. E. Flecker have done their best 
to celebrate its quiet beauty ; and some of the finest 
work of Mr. Drinkwater is lovingly devoted to 
these rural scenes. We know how Professor 
Housman and John Masefield regard Bredon Hill 
— another tribute to this "calm acclivity, salubri- 
ous spot" is paid in Mr. Drinkwater's cheerful 
song, At Grafton. The spirit of his work in gen- 
eral is the spirit of health — ^take life as it is, and 
enjoy it. It is the open-air verse of broad, wind- 
swept English counties. Its surest claim to dis- 
tinction lies in its excellent, finished workmanship 



150 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

— he is a sound craftsman. But lie has not yet 
shown either sufficient originality or sufficient in- 
spiration to rise from the better class of minor 
poets. His verse-drama, The Storm, which was 
produced in Birmingham in 1915, shows strong re- 
semblances to the one-act plays of Mr. Gibson and 
is not otherwise impressive. 

William Henry Davies, the Welsh poet, exhibits 
in his half-dozen miniature volumes an extraor- 
dinary variety of subjects. Everything is grist. 
He was born of Welsh parentage in Monmouth- 
shire on the twentieth of April, 1870. He became 
an American tramp, and practised this interesting 
profession six years ; he made eight or nine trips 
to England on cattle-ships, working his passage; 
he walked about England selling pins and needles. 
He remarks that "he sometimes varied this life 
by singing hymns in the street." At the age of 
thirty-four he became a poet, and he insists — not 
without reason — ^that he has been one ever since. 
Readers may be at times reminded of the manner 
of John Davidson, but after all, Mr. Davies is as 
independent in his poetry as he used to be on the 
road. 

Sometimes his verse is banal — as in the advice 
To a Working Man. But oftener his imagination 
plays on familiar scenes in town and country with 
a lambent flame, illuminating and glorifying com- 
mon objects. He has the heart of the child, and 
tries to see life from a child's clear eyes. 



W. H. DAVIES 151 

THE TWO FLOCKS 

Where are you going to now, white sheep, 

Walking the green hill-side; 
To join that whiter flock on top, 

And share their pride? 

Stay where you are, you silly sheep : 

When you arrive up there, 
You'll find that whiter flock on top 

Clouds in the air! 

Yet much of his poetry springs from his wide 
knowledge and experience of life. An original 
defence of the solitary existence is seen in Death's 
Game, although possibly the grapes are sour. 

Death can but play one game with me — 

If I do live alone; 
He cannot strike me a foul blow' 

Through a beloved one. 

Today he takes my neighbour's wife. 

And leaves a little child 
To lie upon his breast and cry 

Like the Night-wind, so wild. 

And every hour its voice is heard — 

Tell me where is she gone! 
Death cannot play that game with me — 

If I do live alone. 

The feather-weight pocket-volumes of verse that 
this poet puts forth, each containing a crop of tiny 
poems — have an excellent virtue — they are inter- 
esting, good companions for a day in the country. 
There is always suflficient momentum in page 28 
to carry you on to page 29 — something that cannot 
be said of all books. 



152 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

English literature suffered a loss in the death 
of Edward Thomas, who was killed in France on 
the ninth of April, 1917. He was born on the 
third of March, 1878, and had published a long list 
of literary critiques, biographies, interpretations 
of nature, and introspective essays. He took 
many solitary journeys afoot ; his books The South 
Country, The Heart of England, and others, show 
both observation and reflection. Although Eng- 
lish by birth and education, he had in his veins 
Welsh and Spanish blood. 

In 1917 a tiny volume of his poems appeared. 
These are unlike any other verse of the past or 
present. They cannot be called great poetry, but 
they are original, imaginative, whimsical, and re- 
veal a rich personality. Indeed we feel in read- 
ing these rimes that the author was greater than 
anything he wrote or could write. The difficulty 
in articulation comes apparently from a mind so 
full that it cannot run freely off the end of a pen. 

Shyness was undoubtedly characteristic of the 
man, as it often is of minute observers of nature. 
I am not at all surprised to learn from one who 
knew him of his *' temperamental melancholy." 
He was austere and aloof ; but exactly the type of 
mind that would give all he had to those who pos- 
sessed his confidence. It must have been a privi- 
lege to know him intimately. I have said that his 
poems resemble the work of no other poet; this 
is true ; but there is a certain kinship between him 
and Robert Frost, indicated not only in the verses. 



EDWARD THOMAS 153 

but in the fact that his book is dedicated to the 
American. 

His death accentuates the range of the dragnet 
of war. This intellectual, quiet, introspective, 
slightly ironical temperament would seem almost 
ideally unfitted for the trenches. Yet, although 
no soldier by instinct, and having a family de- 
pendent upon his writings for support, he gave 
himself freely to the Great Cause. He never 
speaks in his verses of his own sacrifice, and in- 
deed says little about the war; but the first poem 
in the volume expresses the universal call. 

Rise up, rise up, 

And, as the trumpet blowing 

Chases the dreams of men, 

As the dawn glowing 

The stars that left unlit 

The land and water, 

Rise up and scatter 

The dew that covers 

The print of last night's lovers — 

Scatter it, scatter it ! 

While you are listening 

To the clear horn, 

Forget, men, everything 

On this earth newborn. 

Except that it is lovelier 

Than any mysteries. 

Open your eyes to the air 

That has washed the eyes of the stars 

Through all the dewy night: 

Up with the light. 

To the old wars; 



154 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

In reading Edward Thomas, Rupert Brooke, Alan 
Seeger, we recognize how much greater were the 
things they sacrificed than the creature comforts 
ordinarily emphasized in the departure from home 
to the trenches ; these men gave up their imagina- 
tion. 

A thoroughly representative poem by Edward 
Thomas is Cock-Croiv; beauty of conception 
mingled with the inevitable touch of homeliness 
at the end. 

Out of the wood of thoughts that grows by night 
To be cut down by the sharp axe of light, — 
Out of the night, two cocks together crow, 
Cleaving the darkness with a silver blow: 
And bright before my eyes twin trumpeters stand. 
Heralds of splendour, one at either hand. 
Each facing each as in a coat of arms; 
The milkers lace their boots up at the farms. 

This is his favourite combination, seen on every 
page of his work, — fancy and fact. 

Another poet in khaki who writes powerful and 
original verse is Robert Nichols (born 1893), an 
Oxford man who has already produced two vol- 
umes — Invocation, and, in 1918, Ardours and En- 
durances. Accompanying the second is a por- 
trait made in 1915, exhibiting the face of a 
dreamy-looking boy. No one who reads the pages 
of this book can doubt the author's gift. In his 
trench-poetry he somehow manages to combine 
the realism of Barbusse with an almost holy touch 
of imagination; and some of the most beautiful 
pieces are manly laments for friends killed in 



EGBERT NICHOLS 155 

battle. He was himself severely wounded. His 
poems of strenuous action are mostly too long to 
quote ; occasionally he writes in a more quiet mood 
of contemplation. 

THE FULL HEART 

Alone on the shore in the pause of the nighttime 
I stand and I hear the long wind blow light ; 
I view the constellations quietly, quietly burning ; 
I hear the wave fall in the hush of the night. 

Long after I am dead, ended this bitter journey, 
Many another whose heart holds no light 
Shall your solemn sweetness hush, awe, and comfort, 
my companions. Wind, Waters, Stars, and Night. 

Other Oxford poets from the front are Sieg- 
fried Sassoon, Robert Graves and Willoughby 
Weaving, whose two volumes The Star Fields 
and The Bubble are as original in their way as 
the work of Mr. Nichols, though inferior in beauty 
of expression. Mr. Weaving was invalided home 
in 1915, and his first book has an introduction by 
Robert Bridges. In The Bubble (1917) there are 
many poems so deeply meditative that their full 
force does not reach one until after repeated read- 
ings. He has also a particular talent for the last 
line. 

TO 

(Winter 1916) 

Thou lover of fire, how cold is it in the grave ? 
Would I could bring thee fuel and light thee a fire as of old ! 
Alas ! how I think of thee there, shivering out in the cold, 
Till my own bright fire lacketh the heat which it gave ! 



156 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

Oh, -would I could see thee again, as in days gone by, 
Sitting hands over the tire, or poking it to a bright blaze 
And clearing the cloggy ash from tlie bars in thy careful ways! 
Oh, art thou the more cold or here by the tire am I ? 

B. H. Blackwell, the Oxford publisher, seems 
to have made a good many "finds"; besides pro- 
ducing some of the work of Mr. Nichols and Mr. 
Weaving — both poets now have American pub- 
lishers as well — the four volumes Oxford Verse, 
running from 1910 to 1917, contain many excellent 
things. And in addition to these, there are orig- 
inal adventures in the art of poetry, sometimes 
merely bizarre, but interesting as experiments, 
exhibited in the two volumes Wheels 1916, and 
Wheels 1917, and also in the books c-alled Initi'- 
ates: a Series of Poetry by Proved Hands. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE IRISH POETS 

Irish poetrv a part of English Literature — common-sense 
the basis of romanticism — misapprehension of the poetic tem- 
peniment — WiUiam Butler Yeats — his education — his devotion 
to art — liis theories — his love poetry — resemblance to Maeter- 
linck — the l\Tical element paramount — the psalter>- — pure 
rather than applied poetry — John M. Synge — his mentality — 
his versatility — a terrible personality — his capacity for hatred 
— his subjectivity — his interesting Preface — brooding on death 
— A. E. — The Master of the island — his sincerity and in- 
fluence — disembodied spirits — lus mysticism — homesickness — 
true optimism — James Stephens — poet and novelist — realism 
and fantasy — Padraic Colum — Francis Ledwidge — Susan 
Mitchell — Thomas MacDonagh — Joseph Campbell — Seumas 
O'Sullivan — Herbert Trench — Maurice Francis Egan — NoiTeys 
Jephson O'Conor — F. Carlin — The advance in Ireland. 

In what I have to say of the work of the Irish 
poets, I am thinking of it solely as a part of Eng- 
lish literature. I have in mind no political bias 
whatever, though I confess I have small admira- 
tion for extremists. During the last forty years 
Irishmen have written mainly in the English lan- 
guage, which assures to what is good in their com- 
positions an influence bounded only by the dimen- 
sions of the earth. Great creative writers are 
such an immense and continuous blessing to the 
world that the locality of their birth pales in com- 
parison with the glory of it, a gloiy in which we 
157 



158 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

all profit. We need original writers in America; 
but I had rather have a star of the first magnitude 
appear in London than a star of lesser power ap- 
pear in Los Angeles. Every one who writes good 
English contributes something to English litera- 
ture and is a benefactor to English-speaking peo- 
ple. An Irish or American literary aspirant will 
be rated not according to his local flavour or fer- 
vour, but according to his ability to write the Eng- 
lish language. The language belongs to Ireland 
and to America as much as it belongs to England ; 
excellence in its command is the only test by which 
Irish, American, Canadian, South African, Ha- 
waiian and Australian poets and novelists will be 
judged. The more difficult the test, the stronger 
the appeal to national pride. 

In a recent work, called The Celtic Dawn, I 
found this passage: ''The thesis of their con- 
tention is that modern English, the English of 
contemporary literature, is essentially an im- 
poverished language incapable of directly express- 
ing thought." I am greatly unimpressed by such 
a statement. The chief reason why there is really 
a Celtic Dawn, or a Celtic Renaissance, is because 
Irishmen like Synge, Yeats, Russell and others 
have succeeded in writing English so well that 
they have attracted the attention of the world. 

Ireland has never contributed to English litera- 
ture a poet of the first class. By a poet of the first 
class I mean one of the same grade with the lead- 
ing half-dozen British poets of the nineteenth cen- 



THE IBISH POETS 159 

tury. This dearth of great Irish poets is the more 
noticeable when we think of Ireland's contribu- 
tions to English prose and to English drama. 
Possibly, if one had prophecy rather than history 
to settle the question, one might predict that 
Irishmen would naturally write more and better 
poetry than Englishmen ; for the common supposi- 
tion is that the poetic temperament is romantic, 
sentimental, volatile, reckless. If this were true, 
then the lovable, careless, impulsive Irish would 
completely outclass in original poetry the sensible, 
steady-headed, cautious Englishman. What are 
the facts about the so-called poetic temperament? 
Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Gray, Words- 
worth, Keats, Tennyson, Browning, Arnold, were 
in character, disposition, and temperament pre- 
cisely the opposite of what is superficially sup- 
posed to be ' * poetic. ' ' Some of them were deeply 
erudite ; all of them were deeply thoughtful. They 
were clear-headed, sensible men — in fact, common 
sense was the basis of their mental life. And no 
one can read the letters of Byron without seeing 
how well supplied he was with the shrewd common 
sense of the Englishman. He was more selfish 
than any one of the men enumerated above — but 
he was no fool. There is notliing inconsistent in 
his being at once the greatest romantic poet and 
the greatest satirist of his age. His masterpiece, 
Don Juan, is the expression of a nature at the 
farthest possible remove from sentimentality. 
And the author of Faust was remarkable among 



160 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

all the children of men for his poise, balance, calm 
— in other words, for common sense. 

It is by no accident that the British — whom for- 
eigners delight to c;ill stodgy and slow-witted, — 
have produced more high-class poetr}' than any 
other nation in the histoiy of the world. English 
literature is instinctively romantic, as French 
literature is instinctively classic. The glory of 
French literature is prose; the glory of English 
literature is poetry. 

As the tallest tree must have the deepest roots, 
so it would seem that the loftiest edifices of verse 
must have the deepest foundations. Certainly 
one of the many reasons why American poetry is 
so inferior to British is because our roots do not 
go down sufficiently deep. Great poetry does not 
spring from natures too volatile, too susceptible, 
too easily swept by gusts of emotion. Landor was 
one of the most violent men we have on record; 
he was a prey to uncontrollable outbursts of rage, 
caused by trivial vexations ; but his poetry aimed 
at cold, classical correctness. In comparison with 
Landor, Tennyson's reserve was almost glacial — 
yet out of it bloomed many a gorgeous garden 
of romance. Splendid imaginative masterpieces 
seem to require more often than not a creative 
mind marked by sober reason, logical processes, 
orderly thinking. 

John Morley, who found the management of 
Ireland more than a handful, though he loved Ire- 
land and the Irish with an affection greater than 



THE lEISH POETS 161 

that felt by any other Englishman of his time, has, 
in his RccoUedious, placed on opposite pages — all 
the more striking to me bec<^use unintentional — 
illuminating testimony to the ditference between 
the Irish and the British temperament. And this 
testimony supports the point I am trying to make 
— that the *' typical" logicless, inconsequential 
Irish mind, so winsome and so exasperating, is not 
the kind of brain to produce permanent poetry. 

A peasant was in the dock for a violent assault. The clerk 
read tlie indictment witli all its legal jargon. The prisoner to 
the warder: "What's all that he says?" Warder: "He says 
ye hit Pat Cuny with yer spade on the side of his head." 
Prisoner: "Bedad an' I did.'' Warder: "Then plade not 
guilty." This dialogue, loud and in the full hearing of the 
court. 

Read Wordsworth's two poems on Bums; kind, merciful, 
steady, glowing, manly they are, with some strong phrases, 
good lines, and human feeling all through, winding up in two 
stmizas at the close. These are among the pieces that make 
Wordsworth a poet to live with; he repairs the daily wear 
and tejvr, puts back what the fret of the day has rubbed thin 
or rubbed off, sends us forth in the morning ichole. 

Robert Browning, whose normality in appear- 
ance and conversation pleased sensible folk and 
shocked idolaters, summed up in two stanzas the 
difference between the popular conception of a 
poet and the real truth. One might almost take 
the first stanza as representing the Irish and the 
second the English temperament. 

"Touch him ne'er so lightly, into song he broke: 
Soil so quick-receptive, — not one feather-seed. 
Not one tlower-dust fell but straight its fall awoke 



162 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETKY 

Vitalising virtue: song ■would song succeed 
Sudden as spontaneous — prove a poet-soul I" 

Indeed T 
Koek's the song-soil rather, surface hard and bare: 
Sun and dew their mildness, storm and frost their rage 
Vainly both expend. — few liowers awaken there: 
Quiet in its deft broods — what the aft^r age 
Knows and names a pine, a nation's heritage. 

People who never grow up may have a certain 
kind of fascination, but they Tsill not write great 
poetry. It is exactly the other way with creative 
artists; they grow up faster than the average. 
The maturity of Keats is astonishing. . . . Mr. 
Yeats 's wonderful lamentation, September 1913, 
that sounds like the wailing of the wind, actually 
gives us a reason why Irishmen are getting the 
attention of the world in poetry, as well as in fic- 
tion and drama. 

What need you. being come to sense. 
But fumble in a greasy till 
And add the halfpence to the pence 
And prayer to shivering prayer, until 
You have dried the marrow from the bone ; 
For men were bom to pray and save, 
Romantic Ireland's dead and gone. 
It's with O'Learj- in the grave. 

Yet they were of a different kind. 
The names that stilled your childish play 
They have gone about the world like wind. 
But little time had they to pray 
For whom the hangman's rope was spim. 
And what. God help us. could they save: 
Romantic Ireland's dead and gone. 
It's with O'Leary in the grave. 



THE IRISH POETS 163 

Was it for this the wild geese spread 
The grey wing wpon every tide; 
For this that all that blood was shed, 
For this Edward Fitzgerald died, 
And Eobert Emmet and "Wolfe Tone, 
All that delirium of the brave; 
Romantic Ireland's dead and gone, 
It's with O'Leary in the grave. 

Yet could we turn the years again, 
And call those exiles as they were, 
In all their loneliness and pain 
You'd cry "some woman's yellow hair 
Has maddened every mother's son:" 
They weighed so lightly what they gave, 
But let them be, they're dead and gone, 
They're with O'Learj- in the grave. 

William Butler Yeats has done more for Eng- 
lish poetr\^ than any other Irishman, for he is the 
greatest poet in the English language that Ireland 
has ever produced. He is a notable figure in con- 
temporary literature, liaWng made additions to 
verse, prose and stage-plays. He has by no means 
obliterated Clarence Mangan, but he has surpassed 
him. 

Mr. Yeats was bom at Dublin, on the thirteenth 
of June, 1865. His father was an honour man at 
Trinity College, taking the highest distinction in 
Political Economy. After practising law, he be- 
came a painter, which profession he still adorns. 
The future poet studied art for three years, but 
when twenty-one years old definitely devoted him- 
self to literature. In addition to his original 
work, one of his foremost services to humanity was 



164 ADVANCE OF EXGLISH POETEY 

his adWee to that strange genius, John S^Tige — 
for it was partly owing to the influence of his 
friend that Syiige became a creative writer, and 
he had, alas! little time to lose. 

Mr. Yeats published his first poem in 1S8G. 
Since that date, despite his preoccupation with the 
management of the Abbey Theatre, he has pro- 
duced a long list of works in verse and prose, de- 
cidedly unequal in merit, but shining with the light 
of a luminous mind. 

From the first, Mr. Yeats has seemed to realize 
that he could serve Ireland best by making beauti- 
ful and enduring works of art. rather than by any 
form of political agitation. This is well; for de- 
spite the fact that a total ineptitude for statesman- 
ship seldom prevents the enthusiast from issuing 
and spreading dogmatic propaganda, a merely 
elementary conception of the principle of division 
of labour should make us all rejoice when the artist 
confines himself to art. True artists are scarce 
and precious ; and although practical men of busi- 
ness often regard them as superfluous luxuries, 
the truth is that we cannot live without them. As 
poet and dramatist, ^Ir. Yeats has done more for 
his country than he could have accomplished in 
any other way. 

Never was there more exclusively an artist. He 
wi'ites pure, not applied poetry. I care little for 
his theories of symbolism, magic and what not. 
Poets are judged not by their theories, not by the 
** schools" to which they give passionate adher- 



THE IRISH POETS 165 

ence, but simply and solely by the quality of tlieir 
^\"ork. No amount of theory, no correctness of 
method, no setting up of new or defence of old 
standards, no elevated ideals can make a poet if 
he have not the divine gift. Theories have hardly 
more effect on the actual value of his poetry than 
the colour of the ink in which he writes. The rea- 
son why it is interesting to read what ^Ir. Yeats 
says about his love of magic and of symbols is not 
because there is any truth or falsehood in these 
will-o'-tlie-wisps, but because he is such an artist 
that even when he writes in prose, his style is so 
beautiful, so harmonious that one is forced to 
listen. Literary art has enormous power in pro- 
pelling a projectile of thought. I do not doubt 
that the chief reason for the immense effect of 
such a philosophy as that of Schopenhauer or that 
of Nietzsche is because each man was a literary 
artist — indeed I think both were greater writers 
than thinkers. A good thing this is for their fame, 
for art lasts longer than thought. The fashion of 
a man's thought may pass away; his knowledge 
and his ideas may lose their stamp, either because 
they prove to be false or because they become uni- 
versally current. Everybody believes Copernicus, 
but nobody reads him. Yet when a book, no mat- 
ter how obsolete in thought, is marked by great 
beauty of style, it lives forever. Consider the case 
of Sir Thomas Bro^^^le. Art is the great pre- 
ser\'ative. 
Mr. Yeats has a genius for names and titles. 



166 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

His names, like those of Rossetti's, are sweet sym- 
phonies. The Wind Among the Reeds, The 
Shadowy Waters, The Secret Rose, The Land of 
Heart's Desire, The Island of Statues are poems 
in themselves, and give separate pleasure like an 
overture without the opera. Perhaps it is not too 
fanciful to observe that The Wind Among the 
Reeds suggests better than any other arrange- 
ment of words the lovely minor melodies of our 
poet, while The Shadowy Waters gives exactly 
the picture that comes into one's mind in thinking 
of his poems. There is an extraordinary fluidity 
in his verse, like running water under the shade of 
overhanging branches. One feels that Mr. Yeats 
loves these titles, and chooses them with affection- 
ate solicitude, like a father naming beautiful chil- 
dren. 

The love poetry of Mr. Yeats, like the love 
poetry of Poe, is swept with passion, but the pas- 
sion is mingled with unutterable reverence. It is 
unlike much modern love poetry in its spiritual 
exaltation. Just as manners have become more 
free, and intimacies that once took months to de- 
velop, now need only minutes, so much contem- 
porary verse-tribute to women is so detailed, so 
bold, so cock-sure, that the elaborate compliments 
only half-conceal a sneer. In all such work love 
is born of desire — its sole foundation — and hence 
is equally short-lived and fleeting. In the poems 
of Mr. Yeats, desire seems to follow rather than 



THE IRISH POETS 167 

to precede love. Love thus takes on, as it ought 
to, something of the beauty of holiness. 

Fasten your hair with a golden pin, 
And bind up every wandering tress; 
I bade my heart build these poor rhymes : 
It worked at them, day out, day in, 
Building a sorrowful loveliness 
Out of the battles of old times. 

You need but lift a pearl-pale hand. 
And bind up your long hair and sigh; 
And all men's hearts must bum and beat; 
And candle-like foam on the dim sand. 
And stars climbing the dew-dropping sky. 
Live but to light your passing feet. 

A still more characteristic love-poem is the one 
which gleams with the symbols of the cloths of 
heaven. 

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths, 
Enwrought with golden and silver light, 
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths 
Of night and light and the halflight, 
I would spread the cloths under your feet; 
But I, being poor, have only my dreams; 
I have spread my dreams under your feet ; 
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. 

In mysticism, in symbolism, and in the quality 
of his imagination, Mr. Yeats of course reminds us 
of Maeterlinck. He has the same twilit atmos- 
phere, peopled with elusive dream-footed figures, 
that make no more noise than the wings of an owl. 
He is of imagination all compact. He is neither a 
teacher nor a prophet ; he seems to turn away from 



IGS ADVANCE OF EXGLISII POETRY 

the real sorrows of life, yos, even from its real 
joys, to dwell in a world of his own creation. He 
invites ns thither, if we eare to g'o ; and if we go 
not. we cannot understand either his art or his 
ideas. But if we wiuider with him in the shadowy 
darkness, like the lonely man in Titanic alleys ac- 
companied only by Psyche, we shall see strange 
visions. AVe may be led to the door of a legended 
tomb: we may be led along the border of dim 
waters : but we shall live for a time in the realm of 
Beauty, and be the better for the experience, even 
though it resemble nothing in the town and coun- 
try that we know. 

^Ir. Yeats, like Browning, writes both lyrical 
poems and dramas; but he is at the opposite re- 
move from Browning in everything except the gift 
of song. Browning was so devoted to the dra- 
matic aspect of art. that he carried the drama 
even into its seemingly contradictory form, the 
lyric. Every lyric is a little one-act play, and he 
called them dramatic lyrics. Mr. Yeats, on the 
other hand, is so essentially a lyric poet, that in- 
stead of writing dramatic lyrics, he writes lyric 
dramas. Even his stage-plays are primarily 
lyriciil. 

Those who are interested in Mr. Yeats 's theory 
of speaking, reciting, or chanting: poetry to the 
psaltery should read his book. Idctu<: of Good and 
Eril, which contains some of his most significant 
articles of faith, written in shining prose, ^ir. 
Yeats eannot write on anv subject without illu- 



THE IRISH POETS 169 

niiiiatiiig it by the light of his o^^^l imagination; 
and I find his essays in criticism full of original 
thought — the result of years of brooding reflection. 
In these short pieces his genius is as clear as it is 
in his poems. 

He is, in fact, a master of English. His latest 
work, with its musical title, Per Arnica SUentia 
Luuac (191S), has both in spirit and form some- 
thing of the ecstasy and quaint beauty of Sir 
Thomas Browne. I had supposed that such a 
style as that displayed in I'ni-Burial was a lost 
art; but Mr. Yeats comes near to possessing its 
secret. This book is like a deep pool in its lim- 
pidity and mystery; no man without genius could 
have written it. I mean to read it many times, for 
there are pages that I am not sure that I under- 
stand. One looks into its depths of suggestion as 
one looks into a clear but very deep lake ; one can 
see far down, but not to the bottom of it, which 
remains mysterious. He invites his own soul, but 
there is no loating. Indeed his mind seems preter- 
naturally active, as in a combination of dream and 
cerebration. 

Wo mako out of tlio quarrel with others, rlietorio, but of 
the quarrel with ourselves, poetrA*. Unlike the rhetorioijuis, 
who get a confident voice from remembering: the crowd they 
have won or may ^^•in, we sing amid our unoort;iiuty : luid, 
smitten even in the presence of the most high beauty by the 
knowledge of our solitude, our rhythm shudders. I think, 
too. that no fine poet, no matter how disordereii his life, has 
ever, even in his mere life, had pleasure for his end. . . . The 
other self, the anti-self or antithetical self, as one mav choose 



170 ADVANCE OF EXGLISII POETKY 

to name it, comes but to those wlio are uo loug'er deceived, 
whose passion is reiility. The sentimentalists svre practical 
men who believe in money, iu position, in a marriage bell, jvnd 
whose understandings of happiness is to be so busy whether at 
work or at play, that all is forgotten but the momentary aim. 
They will tind their ple^vsure in a cup that is tilled from 
Lethe's wharf, and for the awjvkeniug, for the vision, for the 
revelation of reality, tradition olYei-s us a different word — 
ecstivsy. . . . We must not make a false faith by hiding from 
our thoughts the causes of doubt, for faith is the highest 
acliievemeut of the human intellect, the only gift man cjui make 
to God. and theivfore it must be offennl in sincerity. Neither 
must we ci-eate. by hiding ugliness, a false beauty as our offer- 
ing to the world. He only can create the greatest iuuiginable 
beauty who has endured all imaginable pangs, for only when 
we have stvn and foreseen what we dread sliall we be ivwtu'ded 
by that dazzling unl'oivseen wing-footed wanderer. 

1 admire liis devotion to the art of poetry. Ho 
will not turn Pegasus into a dray-horse, and make 
him haul c^irt-loads of politieal or moral propa- 
ganda. In his tine apologia, The Cutting of an 
Acjatc. he states and restates his creed: "Litera- 
ture decays when it uo longer makes more beauti- 
ful, or more vivid, the language which unites it to 
all life, and when one tinds the criticism of the 
student, and the purpose of the reformer, and the 
logic of the man of science, where there should 
have been the reveries of the conunon heart, en- 
nobled into some raving Ix'ar or unabashed Don 
Quixote. ... I have been reading through a 
bundle of German plays, and have found every- 
where a desire not to express hopes and alarms 
common to everv man that ever came into the 



THE IRISH POETS 171 

world, but politics or social passion, a veiled or 
open propaganda. ... If Homer were alive today, 
he would only resist, after a deliberate struggle, 
the temptation to tind his subject not in Helen's 
beauty, that every man has desired, nor in the 
wisdom and endurance of Odysseus that has been 
the desire of every woman that has come into the 
world, but in what somebody would describe, per- 
haps, as 4he inevitable contest,' arising out of 
economic causes, between the country-places and 
small towns on the one hand, and, upon the other, 
the great city of Troy, representing one knows 
not what 'tendency to centralization.' " 

In other words, if I understand him correctly, 
Mr. Yeats believes that in writing pure rather 
than applied poetry, he is not turning his back on 
great issues to do filigree work, but is merely turn- 
ing aside from questions of temporary import to 
that which is tixed and eternal, life itself. 

John Millington Synge was born near Dublin on 
the sixteenth of April, 1871, and died in Dublin on 
the twenty-fourth of ^farcli, 1909. It is a curious 
thing that the three great Irishmen of the Celtic 
renaissance — the only men who were truly in- 
spired by genius — originally studied another f onn 
of art than literature. Mr. Yeats studied painting 
for years; A. E. is a painter of distinction; Synge 
was an accomplished musician before he became a 
man of letters. There is not the slightest doubt 
that the elTect of these sister arts upon the literary 



172 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

work of the Great Three is pervasive and power- 
ful. The books of Mr. Yeats and Mr. Russell are 
full of word-pictures ; ajid the rhythm of Syuge 's 
strange prose, which Mr. Ernest Boyd ingeniously 
compares with Dr. Hyde's translations, is full of 
harmonies. 

Dr. Hyde has not only witnessed a new and won- 
derful literaiy revival in his country, but he has 
the satisfaction of knowing that he is vitally con- 
nected with its birth and bloom. 

Synge had the greatest mental endowment of all 
the Irish writers of his time. He had an amaz- 
ingly powerful mind. At Trinity College he took 
prizes in Hebrew and in Irish, and at the same time 
gained a scholarship in harmony and counter- 
point at the Royal Irish Academy of jNlusic. As a 
boy, "he knew the note and plumage of every bird, 
and when and where they were to be found." As 
a man, he could easily have mastered the note of 
every human being, as in addition to his knowledge 
of ancient languages, he seems to have become 
proiicient in German, French, and Italian ^viih. 
singular speed and ease. He was an excellent 
performer on the piano, tlute, and violin, did con- 
juring tricks, and delighted the natives of the Aran 
Islands with his penny whistle. He must have had 
a positive genius for concentration, obtaining a 
command over anything to which he cared to de- 
vote his attention. jMr. Yeats found him in that 
ramshackle old Hotel Conieille in the Latin Quar- 



THE IRISH POETS 173 

tcr, busily writing literary criticism in French and 
English, and told him as an inspired messenger to 
go to the primitive folk in Ireland and become a 
creative artist. He went; and in a few years 
reached the summit of dramatic achievement. 

Synge was a terrible person, as terrible in his 
way as Swift. When C^arlyle saw Daniel Webster, 
he said, ''I should hate to be that man's nigger." 
I do not envy any of the men or women who, for 
whatever reason, incurred the wrath of Synge. 
Tie was never noisy or explosive, like a dog whose 
barks are discounted, to whom one soon ceases to 
pay any attention; we all know the futile and petty 
irascibility of the shallow-minded. Synge was 
like a mastiff who bites without warning. Irony 
was the common chord in his composition. He 
studied life and hated death; hated the gossip of 
the world, which seemed to him the gabble of 
fools. Physically he was a sick man, and felt his 
tether. He thought it frightful that he should 
have to die, while so many idiots lived long. He 
never forgave men and women for their folly, and 
the only reason why he did not forgive God was 
because he was not sure of His existence. The 
lady addressed in the following *'poem" must 
have read it with queasy emotion, and have unwil- 
lingly learned it by heart. A photograph of her 
face immediately after its penisal would look like 
futurist art; but who knows the expression on 
the face of the poet while preparing this 
poison? 



174 ADVAXCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 
THE CURSE 

To a sisttr of an encmt/ of the author's who disapproved of 
"The Pltiiiboif." 

Lord, oonfouiui tins surly sister. 
Blight lior brow with bloti'h and blister. 
Cramp her larviix, hiiig. jvud liver, 
In her guts a gaJIing give her. 

Lot her live to earn her dinnoi-s 
In Mountjoy with seeily sinners : 
Lord, this judgment quickly bring. 
And I'm your servant John M. Synge. 

(Moinitjoy is a prison.) 

Irish oxagiivratioii is as oftoii soon in plonary 
oursos as in plonary blossings; both havo tho qual- 
ity of humour. Tho cursos aro partly compounded 
of robust dolig-ht, liko tho joy of I>ondon eabmon 
in ropartoo; and tho blossings aro donbtloss oom- 
niins^-lod Avitli irony. But Syngo had a savage 
hoart. llo was essentially a wild man, and a 
friend of mine had a vision of him that seems not 
without signitioanoo. TTo was walking in a deso- 
late part of Ireland in a bleak storm of rain: when 
suddenly over the hills oanio tho solitary tiguro o\^ 
Synge, dressed in black, with a broad hat pulled 
over his brows. 

As a stranger and sojourner ho walked this 
earth. In tho midst o\^ Dublin ho never mentioned 
politics, road no newspapers, and little contem- 
porary literature, not even the books of his few 
intimate friends. Every one who know him had 
such immense respect for the quality of his iutel- 



THE IRISH POETS 175 

Icct that it is almost laugliablo to think how eagerly 
they must have awaited criticism of the books they 
gave him^criticism tJiat never came. Yet he 
never seems to have given the impression of surli- 
ness; he was not surly, he was silent. He must 
have been the despair of diagnosticians; even in 
his last illness, it was impossible for the doctors 
and nurses to discover how he felt, for he would 
not tell. I think his burning mind consumed his 
bodily frame. 

Synge wrote few poems, and they came at inter- 
vals during a period of sixteen or seventeen years. 
Objectively, they are unimportant; his contribu- 
tions to English literature are his dramas and his 
prose sketches. But as revelations of his per- 
sonality they have a deep and melancholy interest ; 
and every word of his short Preface, written in 
December, 1908, a few months before his death, is 
valuable. He knew he was a dying man, and not 
only wished to collect these fugitive bits of verse, 
but wished to leave behind him his theory of 
poetry. AVith characteristic bluntness, he says 
that the poems which follow the Preface were 
mostly written '* before the views just stated, with 
which they have little to do, had come into my 
head." 

No discussion of modern verse should omit con- 
sideration of this remarkable PrC'face — for while 
it has had no elTect on either ^fr. Yeats or Mr. 
Russell — it has influenced other Irish poets, and 
many that are not Irish. Indeed much aggres- 



176 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETEY 

sivoly '' modern " work is trying;, more or less suc- 
cessfully, to tit this theory. In the advance, Synge 
was more prophet than poet. 

Many of the older poet*, such as Villon and Herriok and 
Burns, used the whole of their personal life t\s their materitd, 
and the verse written in this way was read by stn^ng men. and 
thieves, and deaoons. not by little eliques only. Then, in the 
town vTitiuiT of the eiirhtet^nth century, onlinary life was put 
into vei-se that was not poetry, and when poetry eanie back 
with Coleridg-e and Shelley, it went into verse that was not 
always luuuan. [This last clause shows the difference between 
Synge and his friends. Yeats and Kussell.] 

In these days poetry is usually a tiower of evil or good; 
but it is the timbre of poetry that wears most surely, and there 
is no timbre that has not strong ivots among the clay and 
worms. 

Even if we grant that exalted poetry can be kept successful 
by itself, the stntng things in life are ntvded in poetry also, to 
show that what is exalted or tender is not made by feeble blood. 
It nuiy almost be said that before verse can be human agiun it 
must learn to be brutal. 

Like Ilerrick, he wrote verse about himself, for 
he knew that much biography and criticism would 
follow his funeral. 

OX AX AXXIYERSAKY 

After reading the dates in a hook of Lyrics. 
With Fifteen-ninety or Sixteen-sixteen 
We end Cervantes, Man^t. X'ashe or Green: 
Then Sixteen-thirteen till two score and nine. 
Is Crashaw's niche, that honey-lipped divine. 
And so when all my little work is done 
They'll s;ay I came in Eighteen-seventy-<.">ne. 
And died in Dublin. . . . What year will they write 
For my poor passjtge to the stall of night T 



THE IRISH POETS 177 

A QUESTION 

I askod if I ETot siok juid died, would you 
With my blaok funeral go walking too. 
If you'd stand oloso to hoar thorn talk or pray 
While I'm lot doAvn iu that steep bank of clay. 

And, No. you said, for if you saw a crew 

Of living idiots pi-essing round that new 

Oak coffin — they alive, I dead beneath 

That bo;u"d — you'd rave and rend them with your teeth. 

The love of brutal strengtli in Syngo's work 
may have been partly the projection of his sick- 
ness, just as the invalid Stevenson delighted in the 
creation of powerful niffians ; but the brooding on 
his owni death is quite modern, and is, I think, 
part of the egoism that is so distinguishing a 
feature in contemporary poetry. So many have 
abandoned all hope of a life beyond the grave, that 
they cling to bodily existence with almost glutton- 
ous passion, and are tilled with self-pity at the 
thought of their o^vll death and burial. To my 
mind, there is something unworthy, something 
childish, in all this. When a child has been re- 
buked or punished by its father or mother, it plays 
a trump card — ''You'll be sorry when I am dead!" 
It is better for men and women to attack the daily 
task with what cheerful energy they can command, 
and let the interruption of death come when it 
must. If life is short, it seems unwise to spend 
so much of our time in rehearsals of a tragedy that 
can have only one performance. 

In the modern Tempest of Ireland, Yeats is 



178 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

Ariel and A. E. is Prosporo. He is the ^faster of 
the island. As a literary artist, he is not the equal 
of either of the two men whose work we have con- 
sidered ; but he is by all odds the greatest Person- 
ality. He holds over his contemporaries a spirit- 
ual sway that many a monarch might envy. Per- 
haps the tinal tribute to him is seen in the fact that 
even George ^ioore treats him with respect. 

One reason for this predominance is the man's 
sincerity. All those who know him regard him 
with reverence; and to us who know him only 
through his books and his friends, his sincerity is 
equally clear and compelling. He has done more 
than any other man to make Dublin a centre of 
intellectual life. At one time his house was kept 
open every Sunday evening, and any friend, 
stranger, or foreigner had the right to walk in 
without knocking, and take a part in the conver- 
sation. A. E. used to subscribe to every literary 
journal, no matter how obscure, that was printed 
in Ireland; every week he would scan the pages, 
hoping to discover a man of promise. It was in 
this way he ''found'' James Stephens, and not 
only found him, but founded him. ]S[any a strug- 
gling painter or poet has reason to bless the gra- 
cious assistance of George AV. Russell. 

It is a singular thing that the three great men 
of modern Ireland seem more like disembodied 
spirits than carnal persons. Synge always seems 
to those who read his books like some ghost, wak- 
ing the echoes with ironical laughter; I cannot 



THE IRISH POETS 179 

imagine A. E. putting on coat and trousers; and 
although I once had the honour— which I grate- 
fully remoniber — of a long talk with W. B. Yeats, 
I never felt that I was listening to a man of flesh 
and blood. It is fitting that these men had their 
earthly dwelling in a sea-girt isle, where every 
foot of ground has its own superstition, and where 
the constant mists are peopled with unearthly 
figures. 

I do not really know what mysticism is; but I 
know that Mr. Yeats and Mv. Russell are both 
mystics and of a quite different stamp. Mr. 
Yeats is not insincere, but his mysticism is a part 
of his art rather than a part of his mind. He is 
artistically, rather than intellectually, sincere. 
The mysticism of Mr. Russell is fully as intellect- 
ual as it is emotional; it is more than his creed; 
it is his life. His poetry and his prose are not 
shadowed by his mysticism, they emanate from it. 
He does not have to live in another world when he 
writes verse, and then come back to earth when the 
dinner or the door bell rings ; he lives in the other 
world all the time. Or rather, the earth and com- 
mon objects are themselves part of the Universal 
Spirit, reflecting its constant activities. 

DUST 

I heard them in their sadness say 

"The earth rebukes the thought of God; 

We are but embers wrapped in clay, 
A little nobler than the sod.'' 



180 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

But I have touched the lips of clay, 

Mother, thy rudest sod to me 
Is thrilled "with fire of hidden day, 

And haunted by all mystery. 

The above poem, taken from the author ^s first 
volume, Homeward: Songs hy the Way, does not 
reflect that homesickness of which A. E. speaks in 
his Preface. Homesickness is longing, yearning; 
and there is little of any such quality in the work 
of A. E. Or, if he is really homesick, he is home- 
sick not like one who has just left home, but more 
like one who is certain of his speedy return thither. 
This homesickness has more anticipation than re- 
gret ; it is like healthy hunger when one is assured 
of the next meal. For assurance is the prime 
thing in A. E. 's temperament and in his work ; it 
partly accounts for his strong influence. Many 
writers today are like sheep having no shepherd ; 
A. E. is a shepherd. To turn from the wailing so 
characteristic of the poets, to the books of this 
high-hearted, resolute, candid, cheerful man, is 
like coming into harbour after a mad voyage. He 
moves among his contemporaries like a calm, able 
surgeon in a hospital. I suspect he has been the 
recipient of many strange confessions. His 
poetry has healing in its wings. 

Has any human voice ever expressed more 
wisely or more tenderly the reason why Our Lord 
was a man of sorrows? Why He spake to hu- 
manity in the language of pain, rather than in the 
language of delight? Was it not simply because, 



THE IRISH POETS 181 

in talking to us, He who could speak all languages, 
used our own, rather than that of His home coun- 
try? 

A LEADER 

Though your eyes with tears were blind, 

Pain upon the path you trod: 
Well we knew, the hosts behind, 

Voice and shining of a god. 

For your darkness was our day, 

Signal fires, your pains untold, 
Lit us on our wandering way 

To the mystic heart of gold. 

Naught we knew of the high land, 

Beauty burning in its spheres ; 
Sorrow we could understand 

And the mystery told in tears. 

Something of the secret of his quiet strength is 
seen in the following two stanzas, which close his 
poem Apocalyptic (1916) : 

It shall be better to be bold 

Than clothed in pui^Dle in that hour; 

The will of steel be more than gold; 
For only what we are is power. 

Who through the starry gate would win 

Must be like those who walk therein. 

You, who have made of earth your star, 
Cry out, indeed, for hopes made vain : 

For only those can laugh who are 
The strong Initiates of Pain, 

Wlio know that mighty god to be 

Sculptor of immortality. 

It is a wonderful thing — a man living in a house 
in Dublin, living a life of intense, ceaseless, and 



ISi: ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

extraordinarily diversified activity, travelling; on 
life's common way in cheerful godliness, and shed- 
ding abroad to the remotest corners of the earth a 
masculine serenity of soul. 

James Stephens was not widely kno\ni until the 
year 1912, when he published a novel called The 
Crock of Gold; this excited many readers in Oreat 
Britain and in America, an excitement consider- 
ably heightened by the appearance of another work 
of prose tiction, 'llic Dcwi-Oods, in 1914; and gen- 
eral curiosity about the author became rampant. 
It was speedily discovered that he was a poet as 
well as a novelist; that three years before his 
reputation he had issued a slim book of verse, 
boldly named I)isurrcctio)u^, the title being the 
boldest thing in it. By 1915 this neglected work 
had passed through four editions, and during the 
last six years he has presented to an admiring 
public five n\ore volumes of poems. The Hill of 
Vision, 1912; Sofujs from the Claif. 1915; The Ad- 
ventures of Seumas Bea, 1915; Green Branches, 
1916, and Bei)icaruafio)is, 1918. 

A. E. believed in him from the start ; and it was 
o\\'ing to the influence of A. E. that Insurrections 
took the form of a book, gratefully dedicated to 
its own begetter. Both patron and protege must 
have been surprised by its lack of impact, and still 
more surprised by the innnense success of Hie 
Crock of Gold. The poems are mainly realistic, 
pictures of slimy city streets with slimy creatures 



THE IRISH POETS 183 

crawling- on the pavements. It is an interesting 
fact that they appeared the same year of Synge's 
Poons with Synge's famous Preface counselling 
brutality, counselling anything to bring poetry 
away from the iridescent dreams of W. B. Yeats 
do^vn to the stark realities of life and nature. 
They bear testimony to the catholic breadth of 
A. E.'s sympathetic appreciation, for they are as 
different as may be imagined from the spirit of 
mysticism. It must also be confessed that their 
absolute merit as poetry is not particularly re- 
markable; all the more credit to the discernment 
of A. E., who described behind them an original 
and powerful personality. 

The influence of Synge is strong in the second 
book of verses, called TJic Hill of Vision, particu- 
larly noticeable in such a poem as The Brute. 
Curiously enough, Songs from the Clay is more 
exalted in tone than The Hill of Vision. The air 
is clearer and purer. But the author of The 
Crock of Gold and The Demi-Gods appears again 
in The Adventures of Seumas Beg. In these 
charming poems we have that triple combination 
of realism, humour, and fantasy that gave so 
original a flavour to the novels. They make a 
valuable addition to child-poetry; for men, women, 
angels, fairies, (lod and the Devil are treated with 
easy familiarity, in practical, definite, conversa- 
tional language. These are the best fruits of his 
imagination in rime. 



184 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

THE DEVIL'S BAG 

I saw the Devil walking down the lane 

Behind our house. — There was a heavy bag 

Strapped tightly on his shoulders, and the rain 

Sizzled when it hit him. He picked a rag 

Up from the ground and put it in his sack, 

And grinned and rubbed his hands. There was a thing 

Moving inside the bag upon his back — 

It must have been a soul ! I saw it fling 

And twist about inside, and not a hole 

Or cranny for escape. Oh, it was sad. 

I cried, and shouted out, "Let out that soul!" 

But he turned round, and, sure, his face went mad, 

And twisted up and down, and he said "Hell!" 

And ran away. . . . Oh, mammy ! I'm not well. 

In 1916 Mr. Stephens published a threnody, 
Green Branches, which illustrates still another 
side of his literary powers. There is organ-like 
music in these noble lines. The sting of bitterness 
is drawn from death, and sorrow changes into a 
solemn rapture. 

In commenting on Synge's poem, The Curse, I 
spoke of the delight the Irish have in hyperbolic 
curses; an excellent illustration of this may be 
found in Mr. Stephens' latest volume, Reincarna- 
tions. There is no doubt that the poet as well as 
his imaginary imprecator found real pleasure in 
the production of the following ejaculations : 

RIGHTEOUS ANGER 

The lanky hank of a she in the inn over there 
Nearly killed me for asking the loan of a glass of beer; 
May the devil grip the whey-faced slut by the hair. 
And beat bad manners out of her skin for a year. 



THE IRISH POETS 185 

That parboiled imp, with the hardest jaw you will see 
On virtue's path, and a voice that would rasp the dead, 
Came roaring and raging the minute she looked at me, 
And threw me out of the house on the back of my head ! 

If I asked her master he'd give me a cask a day; 
But she, with the beer at hand, not a gill would arrange! 
May she marry a ghost and bear him a kitten, and may 
The High King of Glory permit her to get the mange. 

Padraic Colum has followed the suggestion of 
Synge, and made deep excavations for the founda- 
tions of his poetry. It grows up out of the soil 
like a hardy plant; and while it cannot be called 
major work, it has a wholesome, healthy earthi- 
ness. It is realistic in a different way from the 
town eclogues of James Stephens ; it is not merely 
in the country, it is agricultural. His most im- 
portant book is Wild Earth, published in Dublin 
in 1901, republished with additions in New York 
in 1916. The smell of the earth is pungent in such 
poems as The Plougher and The Drover; while 
his masterpiece. An Old Woman of the Roads, 
voices the primeval and universal longing for the 
safe shelter of a home. I wonder what those who 
believe in the abolition of private property are 
going to do with this natural, human passion? 
Private property is not the result of an artificial 
social code — it is the result of an instinct. The 
first three stanzas of this poem indicate its quality, 
expressing the all but inexpressible love of women 
for each stick of furniture and every household 
article. 



186 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

0, to have a little house ! 

To own the hearth and stool and all I 
The heaped up sods upon the fire, 

The pile of turf against the wall ! 

To have a clock with weights and chains 
And pendulum swinging up and down ! 

A dresser filled with shining delft, 

Speckled and white and blue and brown! 

I could be busy all the day 

Clearing and sweeping hearth and floor, 

And fixing on their shelf again 

My white and blue and speckled store ! 

Lord Dunsany brought to public attention a new 
poet, Francis Ledwidge, whose one volume, Songs 
of the Fields, is full of promise. In October, 
1914, he enlisted in Kitchener's first army, and 
was killed on the thirty-first of August, 1917. 
Ledwidge 's poetry is more conventional than that 
of most of his Irish contemporaries, and he is at 
his best in describing natural objects. Such, 
poems as A Rainy Day in April, and A Twilight in 
Middle March are most characteristic. But occa- 
sionally he arrests the ear with a deeper note. 
The first four lines of the following passage, taken 
from An Old Pain, might fittingly apply to a per- 
sonality like that of Synge : 

I hold the mind is the imprisoned soul, 
And all our aspirations are its own 
Struggles and strivings for a golden goal, 
That wear us out like snow men at the thaw. 
And we shall make our Heaven where we have sowti 
Our purple longings. Oh ! can the loved dead draw 



THE IRISH POETS 187 

Anear us when we moan, or watching wait 
Our coming in the woods where first we met, 
The dead leaves falling in their wild hair wet, 
Their hands upon the fastenings of the gate? 

A direct result of the spiritual influence of A. E. 
is seen in the poetry of Susan Mitchell. She is 
not an imitator of his manner, but she reflects the 
mystical faith. Her little volume, The Living 
Chalice, is full of the beauty that rises from suf- 
fering. It is not the spirit of acquiescence or of 
resignation, but rather dauntless triumphant af- 
firmation. Her poems of the Christ-child have 
something of the exaltation of Christina Rossetti ; 
for to her mind the road to victory lies through the 
gate of Humility. Here is a typical illustration : 

THE HEART'S LOW DOOR 

Earth, I will have none of thee. 

Alien to me the lonely plain. 
And the rough passion of the sea 

Storms my unheeding heart in vain. 

The petulance of rain and wind, 

The haughty mountains' superb scorn. 

Are but slight things I've flung behind, 
Old garments that I have out-worn. 

Bare of the grudging grass, and bare 
Of the tall forest's careless shade. 

Deserter from thee, Earth, I dare 
See all thy phantom brightness fade. 

And, darkening to the sun, I go 
To enter by the heart's low door, 

And find where Love's red embers glow 
A home, who ne'er had home before. 



188 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

Thomas MacDonagh (1878-1916) was, like so 
many of the young Irish writers of the twentieth 
century, both scholar and poet. In 1916 he pub- 
lished a prose critical work, Literature in Ireland, 
in which his two passions, love of art and love of 
country, are clearly displayed. His books of 
original verse include The Golden Joy, 1906 ; So}igs 
of Ml/self, 1910, and others. He was a worshipper 
of Beauty, his devotion being even more religious 
than aesthetic. The poems addressed to Beauty 
— of which there are comparatively many — ex- 
hibit the familiar yet melancholy disparity be- 
tween the vision in the poet's soul and the printed 
image of it. This disparity is not owing to faulty 
technique, for his management of metrical effects 
shows ease and grace ; it is simply the lack of suf- 
ficient poetic vitality. Although his ambition as 
an artist appears to have been to write great odes 
and hymns to Beauty, his simple poems of Irish 
life are full of charm. The Wishes to My Son 
has a poignant tenderness. One can hardly read 
it without tears. And the love of a wife for ''her 
man" is truly revealed in the last two stanzas of 
John- John. 

The neighbours' sliame of me began 

When first I brought you in ; 
To wed and keep a tinker man 

They thought a kind of sin ; 
But now this three years since you're gone 

'Tis pity me they do, 
And that I'd rather have, John-John, 

Than that they'd pity you. 



THE IRISH POETS 189 

Pity for me and you, John-John, 
I could not boar. 

Oh, you're my husband right enough, 

But what's the good of that? 
You know you never were the stuff 

To be the cottage cat, 
To watch the fire and hear me lock 

The door and put out Shep — 
But there now, it is six o'clock 

And time for you to step. 
God bless and keep you far, John-John ! 

And that's my prayer. 

Joseph Campbell, most of whose work has been 
published under the Irish name Seosamh Mac- 
cathmhaoil, writes both regular and free verse. 
He is close to the soil, and speaks the thoughts of 
the peasants, articulating their pleasures, their 
pains, and their superstitions. No deadness of 
conventionality dulls the edge of his art — he is an 
original man. His fancy is bold, and he makes 
no attempt to repress it. Perhaps his most strik- 
ing poem is / am the Gilly of Christ — strange that 
its reverence has been mistaken for sacrilege! 
And in the little song, Go, Ploughman, Plough, one 
tastes the joy of muscle, the revelation of the up- 
turned earth, and the promise of beauty in 
fruition. 

Go, ploughman, plough 

The mearing lands. 

The meadow lands : 

The mountain lands : 

All life is bare 

Beneath your share, 

All love is in your lusty hands. 



190 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

Up, horses, now! 

And straight and true 

Let every broken furrow run : 

The strength you sweat 

Shall blossom yet 

In golden glory to the sun. 

In 1917 Mr. Campbell published a beautiful 
volume, signed with his English name, embellished 
with his own drawings — one for each poem — called 
Earth of Cualann. Cualann is the old name for 
the County of Wicklow, but it includes also a 
stretch to the northwest, reaching close to Dublin. 
Mr. Campbell's description of it in his preface 
makes a musical overture to the verses that follow. 
''Wild and unspoilt, a country of cairn-crowned 
hills and dark, watered valleys, it bears even to 
this day something of the freshness of the heroic 
dawn. ' ' 

The work of Seumas 'Sullivan, born in 1878, 
has often been likened to that of W. B. Yeats, but 
I can see little similarity either in spirit or in man- 
ner. The younger poet has the secret of melody 
and his verses show a high degree of technical ex- 
cellence ; but in these respects he no more resem- 
bles his famous countryman than many another 
master. His best poems are collected in a volume 
published in 1912, and the most interesting of these 
give pictures of various city streets, Mercer Street 
(three), Nelson Street, Cufe Street, and so on. 
In other words, the most original part of this 
poet's production is founded on reality. This 



THE IRISH POETS 191 

does not mean that he lacks imagination ; for it is 
only by imagination that a writer can portray and 
interpret familiar scenes. The more widely and 
easily their veracity can be verified by readers, the 
greater is the challenge to the art of the poet. 

Although the work of Herbert Trench is not 
particularly identified with Ireland, he was born 
in County Cork, in 1865, and his first volume of 
poems (1901) was called Deirdre Wedded. He 
completed his formal education at Oxford, taking 
a first class in the Final Honour Schools, and be- 
coming a Fellow of All Souls. His poetical repu- 
tation, which began wdth the appearance of Apollo 
and the Seaman, in 1907, has been perceptibly 
heightened by the publication in 1918 of his col- 
lected works in two volumes, Poems, with Fables 
in Prose, saluted rapturously by a London critic 
under the heading ''Unforgettable Phrases." No 
one can now tell whether they are unforgettable 
or not ; but his poems are certainly memorable for 
individual lines rather than for complete archi- 
tectural beauty. In the midst of commonplace 
composition single phrases stand out in a manner 
that almost startles the reader. 

We may properly add to our list the names of 
three Irish poets who are Americans. Maurice 
Francis Egan, full of years and honours, a scholar 
and statesman, giving notable service to America 
as our Minister to Denmark, has written poetry 
marked by tenderness of feeling and delicacy of 
art. His little book, Songs and Sonnets, pub- 



\9'2 APAAXOE OF ENGLISH POETEY 

lished in 1SJ^L\ oxhibits tho raiigv of liis work as 
well as aiiytliinLi: that ho has writ ton. It is 
founded on a doop and pnro religious faith. . . . 
Norreys Jephson O 'Conor is a young Irish- Anieri- 
«ni, a graduate of Harvard, and has already pub- 
lished three volnnies ol' verse, CcUic Memories, 
whieh appeared in England in I91l\ Beside the 
nhiekivater, 1915, and Soups of the Celtic Past. 
liMS: in 19U>he vniblished a poetic play. The Fairu 
Bride, whieh was produced for the benetit of Irish 
troops at the front. American by birth and resi- 
dence, of Irish ancestry, he draws his inspiration 
almost wholly from Celtic lore and Celtic scenes, 
lie is a natural singer, whose art is steadily in- 
creasing in authority. 

In UMS inuuediate attention was aroused by a 
volume of poems cnlled .1/// Irelmid. from Francis 
Carlin. This is the work o( a young Irishman, a 
New York business man, who. outside of the shop, 
has dreamcil dreams. Many of these verses are 
full of beauty and charm. 

It will be seen from our review of the chief tig- 
ures among contemporary Irish poets that the 
.iolly, jigging Irishman of stage history is quite 
conspicuous by his absence. He still gives his 
song and dance, and those who prefer nmsical- 
comedy to orchestral compositions c^\n tind hijn in 
the numerous anthologies of Anglo-Irish verse; 
but the tone of modern Irish poetry is spiritual 
rather than hearty. 

Whatever may be thought of the appropriate- 



THE IRISH POETS 193 

noss of the term ''Advance of English Poetry" for 
niy survey of the modern field as a whole, tliere is 
no doubt that it applies fittingly to Ireland. The 
last twenty-five years have seen an awakening of 
poetic activity in that island unlike anything 
known there before; and Dublin has become one 
of the literary centres of the world. AVhen a new 
movement produces three men of genius, and a 
long list of poets of distinction, it should be recog- 
nized with respect for its achievement, and with 
faith in its future. 



CHAPTER VII 

AMERICAN VETERANS AND FORERUNNERS 

American Poetry in the eip:hteen-nineties — "William Vaughn 
Moody — his early death a serious loss to literature — George 
Santayana — a master of the sonnet — Robert Underwood John- 
son — his moral idealism — Ricliard Burton — his healthy op- 
timism — his growth — Edwin Markham and his famous poem — 
Ella Wheeler Wilcox — her additions to our language — Edmund 
Vance Cooke — Edith M. Thomas — Henry van Dyke — George E. 
Woodberry — his spiritual and ethereal quality — AVilliam Dud- 
ley Foulke — translator of Petrarch — the late H. K. Viele — his 
■wliimsicality — Cale Young Rice — his prolific production — his 
versatility — Josephine P. Peabody — Siirsum Cord<i — her child 
poems — Edwin Arlington Robinson — a forerunner of the mod- 
ern advance — his manliness and common sense — intellectual 
qualities. 

To compel public recognition by a fresh volume of 
poems is becoming increasingly difficult. The 
country fields and the city streets are full of sing- 
ing birds; and after a few more springs have 
awakened the earth, it may become as impossible 
to distinguish the note of a new imagist as the 
note of an individual robin. 'Wiion the publishers 
advertise the initial appearance of a poet, we 
simply say Another! The versifiers and their 
friends who study them through a magnifying 
glass may ultimately force us to classify the 
songsters into wild poets, gamy poets, barnyard 
poets, poets that hunt and are hunted. 

194 



WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY 195 

But in the last decade of the last century, poets 
other than migratory, poets who were winter resi- 
dents, were sufficiently uncommon. Indeed the 
courage required to call oneself a poet was con- 
siderable. 

Of the old leaders, Wliitman, Whittier, and 
Holmes lived into the eighteen-nineties ; and when, 
in 1894, the last leaf left the tree, we could not 
help wondering what the next Maytime would 
bring forth. Had William Vaughn Moody lived 
longer, it is probable that America would have had 
another major poet. He wrote verse to please 
himself, and plays in order that he might write 
more verse ; but at the dawning of a great career, 
the veto of death ended both. As it is, much of his 
work will abide. 

Indiana has the honour of his birth. He was 
bom at Spencer, on the eighth of July, 1869. He 
was graduated at Harvard, and after teaching 
there, he became a member of the English Depart- 
ment of the University of Chicago. He died at 
Colorado Springs, on the seventeenth of October, 
1910. 

The quality of high seriousness, so dear to 
Matthew Arnold, was characteristic of everything 
that Mr. Moody gave to the public. At his best, 
there is a noble dignity, a pure serenity in his 
work, which make for immortality. This dignity 
is never assumed ; it is not worn like an academic 
robe ; it is an integral part of the poetry. An Ode 
in Time of Hesitation has already become a classic, 



196 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

both for its depth of moral feeling and for its 
sculptured style. Like so many other poets, Mr, 
Moody was an artist with pencil and brush as well 
as with the pen; his study of form shows in his 
language. 

George Santayana was bom at Madrid, on the 
sixteenth of December, 1863. His father was a 
Spaniard, and his mother an American. He was 
graduated from Harvard in 1886, and later became 
Professor of Philosophy, which position he re- 
signed in 1912, because academic life had gro^vn 
less and less congenial, although his resignation 
was a matter of sincere regret on the part of both 
his colleagues and his pupils. Latterly he has 
lived in France. 

He is a professional philosopher but primarily 
a man of letters. His philosophy is interesting 
chiefly because the books that contain it are ex- 
quisitely written. He is an artist in prose and 
verse, and it seems unfortunate that his profes- 
sorial activity — as in the case of A. E. Housman — 
choked his Muse. For art has this eternal ad- 
vantage over learning. Nobody knows whether 
or not philosophical truth is really true; but 
Beauty is really beautiful. 

In 1894 Mr. Santayana produced — in a tiny 
volume limited to four hundred and fifty copies 
on small paper — Sonnets and Other Poems; and 
in 1899 a less important book, Lucifer: a Theo- 
logical Tragedy. No living American has written 
finer sonnets than our philosopher. In sincerity 



GEORGE SANTAYANA 197 

of feeling, in living language, and in melody they 
reach distinction. 

A wall, a wall around my garden rear, 

And hedge me in from the disconsolate hills ; 

Give me but one of all the mountain rills, 

Enough of ocean in its voice I hear. 

Come no profane insatiate mortal near 

Witli the contagion of his passionate ills ; 

Tlie smoke of battle all the valley fills, 

Let the eternal sunlight greet me here. 

This spot is sacred to the deeper soul 

And to the piety that mocks no more. 

In nature's inmost heart is no uproar, 

None in this shrine; in peace the heavens roll. 

In peace the slow tides pulse from shore to shore, 

And ancient quiet broods from pole to pole. 

world, thou choosest not the better parti 
It is not wisdom to be only wise, 
And on the inward vision close the eyes, 
But it is wisdom to believe the heart. 
Columbus found a world, and had no chart, 
Save one that faith deciphered in tlie skies; 
To trust the soul's invincible surmise 
Was all his science and his only art. 
Our knowledge is a torch of smoky pine 
That lights the patliway but one step ahead 
Across a void of mystery and dread. 
Bid, then, the tender light of faith to shine 
By which alone the mortal heart is led 
Unto the thinking of the thought divine. 

ON A VOLUME OF SCHOLASTIC 
PHILOSOPHY 

What chilly cloister or what lattice dim 
Cast painted light upon this careful page? 
What thought compulsive held the patient sage 
Till sound of matin bell or evening hymn? 



198 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

Did visions of the Heavenly Lover swim 

Before his eyes in youth, or did stem rage 

Against rash heresy keep green his age? 

Had he seen God, to write so much of Him? 

Gone is that irrecoverable mind 

With all its phantoms, senseless to mankind 

As a dream's trouble or the speech of birds. 

The breath that stirred his lips he soon resigned 

To windy chaos, and we only find 

The garnered husks of his disused words. 

Robert Underwood Johnson was born at Wash- 
ington, on the twelfth of January, 1853, and took 
his bachelor's degree at Earlham College, in In- 
diana, at the age of eighteen. When twenty years 
old, he became a member of the editorial staff of 
the Century Magazine, and remained there exactly 
forty years. His first volume of poems, The Win- 
ter Hour, was published in 1891, since which time 
he has produced many others. Now he is his own 
publisher, and two attractive books ' * published by 
the author" appeared in 1917 — Poems of War and 
Peace and Italian Rhapsody. 

Mr. Johnson is a conservative, by which he 
would mean that as editor, publicist, and poet, he 
has tried to maintain the highest standards in art, 
politics, morality, and religion. Certainly his 
services to his country have been important ; and 
many good causes that he advocated are now 
realities. There is no love lost between him and 
the ''new" school in poetry, and possibly each 
fails to appreciate what is good in the other. 

Moral idealism is the foundation of much of Mr. 



R. U. JOHNSON 199 

Johnson 's verse ; lie has written many occasional 
poems, poems supporting good men and good 
works, and poems attacking the omnipresent and 
well-organized forces of evil. I am quite aware 
that in the eyes of many critics such praise as that 
damns him beyond hope of redemption; but the 
interesting fact is, that although he has toiled for 
righteousness all his life, he is a poet. 

His poem, The Voice of Webster, although writ- 
ten years ago, is not only in harmony with con- 
temporary historical judgment (1918) but has a 
Doric dignity worthy of the subject. There are 
not a few memorable lines : 

Forgetful of the father in the son, 

Men praised in Lincoln what they blamed in him. 

Always the friend of small and oppressed na- 
tions, whose fate arouses in him an unquenchable 
indignation, he published in 1908 paraphrases 
from the leading poet of Servia. In view of what 
has happened during the last four years, the first 
sentence of the preface to these verses, written by 
Nikola Tesla, has a reinforced emphasis — ''Hardly 
is there a nation which has met with a sadder fate 
than the Servian. " How curious today seems the 
individual or national pessimism that was so com- 
mon before 1914! Why did we not realize how 
(comparatively) happy we were then? Hell then 
seems like paradise now. It is as though an ath- 
letic pessimist should lose both legs. Shall we 
never learn anything from Edgar's wisdom? 



200 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

gods! "Who is't can say ''I am at the woi-st"f 

1 aiu woi"se than e'er I was. 

Another poet, who has had a kmg and honour- 
able career, is Eiehard Burton. He was born at 
Hartford, Connecticut, on the fourteenth of March, 
1859, and was educated at Trinity and at Johns 
Hopkins, where he took the doctor's degree in 
Anglo-Saxon. For the last twenty years he has 
been Professor of English Literature at the Uni- 
versity of Minnesota, and is one of the best teach- 
ers and lecturers in the country. He paradoxi- 
cally found his voice in a volume of original poems 
called Dumb in June, which appeared in 1895. 
Since then he has published many books of verse 
and prose — plays, stories, essays, and lyrics. 

He has sho-svn steady development as a poet — 
Poems of Earth's Meaning (he has the habit of 
bad titles), which came out in 1917, is his high- 
water mark. I am glad that he reprinted in this 
volume the elegy on the death of Arthur Upson, 
written in 1910 ; there is not a false note in it. 

The personality of Richard Burton shines 
clearly through his work ; cheerful manliness and 
cheerful godliness. He knows more about human 
nature than many pretentious diagnosticians ; and 
his gladness in living communicates itself to the 
reader. Occasionally, as in Spring Fantasies, 
there is a subtlety easy to miss on a tirst or care- 
less reading. On the edge of sixty, this poet is 
doing his best singing and best thinking. 

Sometimes an author who has been writing all 



MARKHAM, WILCOX, COOKE 201 

his life will, under the flashlight of inspiration, 
reveal deep places by a few words formed into 
some phrase that burns its way into literature. 
This is the case with Edwin Markham (born 1852) 
who has produced many books, but seems destined 
to be remembered for The Man With the Hoe 
( 189!)). His other works are by no means negligi- 
ble, but that one poem made the whole world kin. 
To a certain extent, the same may be said of Ella 
Wheeler Wilcox (born 1855). In spite of an ex- 
cess of sentimentality, which is her besetting sin, 
she has written nmch excellent verse. Two say- 
ings, however, will be remembered h)ng after many 
of her contemi)oraries are forgotten : 

Lau}i;li and llic world lau{?lis witli you, 
Weep, and ycm weep alono. 

Furthermore, in these days of world-tragedy, 
we all owe her a debt of gratitude for being the 
author of the phrase written many years ago : 

No question is over s(!ttled 
Until it is settled right. 

The legitimate successor to James Whitcomb 
Riley is Edmund Vance Cooke (bom 186(5). He 
has the same philosophy of cheerful kindliness, 
founded on a shrewd knowledge of human nature. 
Verse is his mother tongue; and occasionally he 
rises above fluency and ingenuity into the pure air 
of imagination. 

Among America's living veterans should be 



202 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

named with respect Edith M. Thomas, who has 
been bravely singing for over thirty years. She 
was born in Ohio on the twelfth of August, 1854, 
and her first book of poems appeared in 1885. 
She is an excellent illustration of just how far 
talent can go unaccompanied by the divine breath 
of inspiration. She has perhaps almost too much 
facility; she has dignity, good taste, an excellent 
command of a wide variety of metrical effects ; she 
has read ancient and modern authors, she is a 
keen observer, she is as alert and inquisitive now, 
as in the days of her youth ; and loves to use her 
abilities in cultivating the fruits of the spirit. I 
suspect that with the modesty that so frequently 
accompanies good taste, she understands her own 
limitations better than any critic could do. 

Her long faithfulness to the Muse ought to be 
remembered, now that poetry has come into its 
kingdom. 

Among our veteran poets should be numbered 
also Henry Van Dyke (born 1852). His versa- 
tility is so remarkable that it has somewhat ob- 
scured his particular merit. His lyric Reliance is 
spiritually as well as artistically true : 

Not to the swift, the race: 

Not to the strong, the fight: 

Not to the righteous, perfect grace: 

Not to the wise, the light. 

But often faltering feet 
Come surest to the goal; 
And they who walk in darkness meet 
The sunrise of the soul. 



GEORGE E. WOODBERRY 203 

A thousand times by night 
The Syrian hosts have died; 
A thousand times the vanquished right 
Hath risen, glorified. 

The truth by wise men sought 
Was spoken by a child; 
The alabaster box was brought 
In trembling hands defiled. 

Not from the torch, the gleam, 
But from the stars above: 
Not from my heart, life's crystal stream, 
But from the depths of love. 

George E. Woodberry (born 1855), graduate of 
Harvard, a scholar, literary biographer, and critic 
of high standing, has been eminent among con- 
temporary American poets since the year 1890, 
when appeared his book of verse, The North Shore 
Watch. In 1917 an interesting and valuable Study 
of his poetry appeared, written by Louis V. 
Ledoux, and accompanied by a carefully minute 
bibliography. I do not mean to say anything un- 
pleasant about Mr. Woodberry or the public, when 
I say that his poetry is too fine for popularity. It 
is not the raw material of poetry, like that of Carl 
Sandburg, yet it is not exactly the finished product 
that passes by the common name. It is rather the 
essence of poetry, the spirit of poetry, a clear 
flame — almost impalpable. ''You may not be 
worthy to smoke the Arcadia mixture, ' ' well — we 
may not be worthy to read all that Mr. Woodberry 
writes. And I am convinced that it is not his 



204 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

fault. His poems of nature and his poems of love 
speak out of the spirit. He not only never 
''writes down" to the public, it seems almost as if 
he intended his verse to be read by some race su- 
perior to the present stage of human development. 

But in his motion like an angel sings, 
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins; 
Such harmony is in immortal souls ; 
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay 
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it. 

William Dudley Foulke may fairly be classed 
with the Indiana group. He was born at New 
York in 1848, but has lived in Indiana since 1876. 
He has been conspicuous in much political and 
social service, but the soul of the man is found in 
his books of verse, most of which have been first 
printed in England. He is a lifelong student of 
Petrarch, and has made many excellent transla- 
tions. His best independent work may be found 
in a group of poems properly called Ad Patriam. 
I think such a sonnet as The City's Crown is fairly 
representative : 

What makes a city great? Huge piles of stone 
Heaped heavenward? Vast multitudes who dwell 

Within wide circling walls? Palace and throne 
And riches past the count of man to tell, 

And wide domain ? Nay, these the empty husk ! 

True glory dwells where glorious deeds are done, 
Where great men rise whose names athwart the dusk 

Of misty centuries gleam like the sun! 



CALE YOUNG RICE 205 

In Athens, Sparta, Florence, 'twas the soul 
That was the city's bright, immortal part, 

The splendour of the spirit was their goal. 
Their jewel, the unconquerable heart ! 

So may the city that I love be great 
Till every stone shall be articulate. 

The early death of Herman Knickerbocker Viele 
robbed America not only of one of her most bril- 
liant novelists, but of a poet of fine flavour. In 
1903 he published a tall, thin book, Random Verse, 
that has something of the charm and beauty of 
The Inn of the Silver Moon. In everything that 
he wrote, Mr. Viele revealed a winsome whimsi- 
cality, and a lightness of touch impossible except 
to true artists. It should also be remembered to 
his credit that he loved France with an ardour not 
so frequently expressed then as now. Indeed, he 
loved her so much that the last four years of 
agony might have come near to breaking his heart. 
He was one of the finest spirits of the twentieth 
century. 

Cale Young Bice was born in Kentucky, on the 
seventh of December, 1872. He is a graduate of 
Cumberland University and of Harvard, and his 
wife is the famous creator of Mrs. Wiggs. He 
has been a prolific poet, having produced many 
dramas and lyrics, which were collected in two 
stout volumes in 1915. In 1917 appeared two new 
works. Trails Sunward and Wraiths and Realities, 
with interesting prefaces, in which the anthologies 



•JOd ADVANCE OF ENGLTSTT POETRY 

of tlio "now" pootry, tlioir makers, oditors, ami 
(lolVmlors, aro heartily eiuliivlled. INlr. Hiee is a 
conservative in art, and -svrites in the orthodox 
manner; althongh lie is not afraid to make metri- 
eaJ experiments. 

1 like his lyrical pieces better than his dramas. 
His verse-phiys are ii:ood, bnt not snpremely good ; 
and 1 tind it dillicnlt to read either blank verse 
or rimed drama, nnless it is in the tirst class, 
"svhere assnredly Mr. Kice's meritorimis elYorts do 
not belong-. 

His songs are sponlaneons, not manut'nctnred. 
Tie is a natnral singer \vith snch facility that it is 
rather snr})rising that the average of his work is 
so gmnl. A man who writes so nmch onght, one 
wonhi think, to be more often than not, common- 
place; bnt the fact is that most of his poems could 
not be turned into prose without losing their life, 
lie has limitations instead of faults; witliin his 
range he may be counted on to give a satisfactory 
performance. l\v range I mean of course height 
rather than breadth, lie is at home all over the 
earth, and his subjects are as varied as his style. 

Josephine Preston Peabody (Mrs. Alarks) w^as 
born at New York, and took her degree at Pad- 
clitTe in 1894. For two years she was a member 
oi' the Fnglish department of AVellesley (two syl- 
lables only). Her drama Marlowe (1901) gave 
her sonu^thing like fanu\ though I have always 
thought it was overrated; it is certainly inferior 
to The Death of Marlowe (1837), by Kichard lien- 



JOSI'IPITINE PRABODY 207 

^nst TTonio. In 1J)H) lior play I'hc Piper won Uut 
Stratrord-on-Avon prize, and HubHcquenily proviul 
to be one of the most successful plays seen on tin; 
Anioricaii stai^c in tlie twentieth century. It was 
picxhiccd by the New Theatre, tiie fnicst stock 
coTupany ever known in AnuM-ica. 

Josepliine Peabody Inis writtcMi otluM' dramas, 
and lias an enviable reputation as a lyric poet. 
Thv. burden of her poetry is Hursum Corda! As 
I read modem verse, I am forced to the conclu- 
sion that men and women require a vast deal of 
cond'ortiii^^ The years preceding the war seem 
in the retrospect happy, almost a golden a^^e; 
liomesickness for the FiUgland, France, Italy, 
America that existed before 1914 is almost a uni- 
versal S(uitiment; yet wlien we read the verse com- 
posed durin<i^ tliosc; days of j)rosperous tranciuil- 
lity, when youtli seemed comic rather tiian tragic, 
we find that half the poets spent their time in 
lamentation, and the other half in first aid. An 
enormous number of lyrics speak as thoufi^h de- 
spondency were the normal condition of men and 
women ; are we really all sad when alone, engaged 
in reading or writing? ''Fvery man is grave 
alone," said Emerson. I wonder. 

So many poets seem to tell us that we ought not 
absolutely to abandon all hope. The case for 
living is admittedly a bad one; but the poets be- 
seecli us to stick it. Does every man really go 
down to business in the morning with his jaw set? 
Does every woman begin the day with compressed 



208 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

lips, determined somehow to pull through till aft- 
ernoon? Even the nature poets are always tell- 
ing us to look at the birds and flowers and cheer 
up. Is that all botany and zoology are good for? 
Have we nothing to learn from nature but — buck 
up? 

I do not mean that Josephine Peabody's poems 
resemble glad Polyanna, but I was driven to these 
divagations by the number of cheery lyrics that 
she has felt it necessary to write. Now I find it 
almost as depressing to be told that there is hope 
as to be told that there isn't. 

I met Poor Sorrow on the way 

As I came down the years ; 
I gave him everything I had 

And looked at him through tears. 

"But, Sorrow, give me here again 

Some little sign to show; 
For I have given all I own; 

Yet have I far to go." 

Then Sorrow' charmed my eyes for me 

And hallowed them thus far; 
"Look deep enough in every dark, 

And you shall see the star." 

The first two poems in The Harvest Moon 
(1916) are very fine; but sometimes I think her 
best work is found in a field where it is difficult to 
excel — I mean child poetry. Her Cradle Song is 
as good as anything of hers I know, though I could 
wish she had omitted the parenthetical refrain. I 
hope readers will forgive me — though I know they 



E. A. KOBINSON 209 

won't — for saying that Dormi, dormi tu sounds 
like a triumphant exclamation at the sixteenth 
hole. 

An American poet who won twenty-two years 
ago a reputation with a small volume, who ten 
years later seemed almost forgotten, and who now 
deservedly stands higher than ever before is Ed- 
win Arlington Robinson. He was born in Maine, 
on the twenty-second of December, 1869, and 
studied at Harvard University. In 1896 he pub- 
lished two poems. The Torrent and The Night 
Before; these were included the next year in a 
volume called The Children of the Night. His suc- 
cessive books of verse are Captain Craig, 1902; 
The Town Down the River, 1910 ; The Man Against 
the Sky, 1916 ; Merlin, 1917 ; and he has printed two 
plays, of which Van Zorn (1914) despite its chill- 
ing reception, is exceedingly good. 

Mr. Robinson is not only one of our best known 
American contemporary poets, but is a leader and 
recognized as such. Many write verses today be- 
cause the climate is so favourable to the Muse's 
somewhat delicate health. But if Mr. Robinson is 
not a germinal writer, he is at all events a pre- 
cursor of the modern advance. The year 1896 was 
not opportune for a venture in yerse, but the 
Gardiner poet has never cared to be in the rear- 
ward of a fashion. The two poems that he pro- 
duced that year he has since surpassed, but they 
clearly demonstrated his right to live and to be 
heard. 



210 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

The prologue to the 1897 volume contained his 
platform, which, so far as I know, he has never 
seen cause to change. Despite the title, he is not 
an infant crying in the night; he is a full-grown 
man, whose voice of resonant hope and faith is 
heard in the darkness. His chief reason for be- 
lieving in God is that it is more sensible to believe 
in Him than not to believe. His religion, like his 
art, is founded on common sense. Everything 
that he writes, whether in drama, in lyrics, or in 
prose criticism, is eminently rational. 

There is one creed, and only one, 
That glorilies God's excellence; 

So cherish, that His will be done, 
The common creed of common sense. 

It is the crimson, not the grey. 

That charms the twilight of all time; 

It is the promise of the day 

That makes the starry sky sublime. 

It is the faith within the fear 

That holds us to the life we curse; — 

So let us in oui-selves revere 
The Self which is the Universe ! 

Let us, the Children of the Night, 
Put off the cloak that hides the scar! 

Let us be Children of the Light, 
And tell the ages what we are ! 

This creed is repeated in the sonnet Credo, 
later in the same volume, which also contains those 
rather striking portraits of individuals, of which 
the most impressive is Bi chard Cory. More than 



E. A. ROBINSON 211 

one critic has observed that these dry sketches are 
in a way forerunners of the Spoon River An- 
thology. 

The next book, Captain Craig, rather disap- 
pointed the eager expectations of the poet's ad- 
mirers; like Carlyle's Frederick, the man finally 
turns out to be not anywhere near worth the intel- 
lectual energy expended on him. Yet this volume 
contained what is on the whole, Mr. Robinson's 
masterpiece — Isaac and Archibald. We are given 
a striking picture of these old men, and I suppose 
one reason why we recognize the merit of this 
poem so much more clearly than we did sixteen 
years ago, is because this particular kind of char- 
acter-analysis was not in demand at that time. 

The figure of the man against the sky, which 
gives the name to the work published in 1916, does 
not appear, strictly speaking, till the end of the 
book. Yet in reality the first poem, Flammonde, 
is the man against the sky-line, who looms up 
biggest of all in his town as we look back. This 
fable teaches us to appreciate the unappreciated. 

Mr. Robinson's latest volume. Merlin, may 
safely be neglected by students of his work. It 
adds nothing to his reputation, and seems unchar- 
acteristic. I can find little in it except diluted 
Tennyson, and it won't do to dilute Tennyson. 
One might almost as well try to polish him. It 
is of course possible that Mr. Robinson wished to 
try something in a romantic vein ; but it is not his 
vein. He excels in the clear presentment of char- 



212 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

acter; in pith; in sharp outline; in solid, mas- 
culine effort; his voice is baritone rather than 
tenor. 

To me his poetry is valuable for its moral 
stimulus; for its unadorned honesty and sincer- 
ity; for its clear rather than warm singing. He 
is an excellent draughtsman; everything that he 
has done has beauty of line ; anything pretentious 
is to him abhorrent. He is more map-maker than 
painter. He is of course more than a maker of 
maps. -He has drawn many an intricate and ac- 
curate chart of the deeps and shallows of the 
human soul. 



CHAPTER VIII 

VAOHEIi LINDSAY AND ROBERT FROST 

Lindsay the Cymbalist — first impression — Harriet Monroe's 
Magazine — training in art — the long Viigubond tramps — cor- 
rect order of his works — his drawings — the "Poem (lame" — 
The Congo — General William Booth — wide swee[) of his imag- 
ination — sudden contrasts in sound — his prose works — his in- 
terest in moving pictures — an aj>ostle of democracy — a wan- 
dering minstrel — his vitality — a prinuiry man — art plus moral- 
ity — his geniality — a i)oet and a missionary — his fearlessness 
— Robert Frost — the poet of New England — his paradoxical 
birth — his education — his career in England — his experiences 
on a farm — his theory of the spoken word — an out-door poet — 
not a singer — lack of range — interpreter as well as observer 
— pure realism — rural tragedies — centrifugal force — men and 
women — suspense — the building of a poem — the pleasure of 
recognition — his sincerity — his truthfulness. 

"But you — you can help so much more. You can help spir- 
itually. You can help to shape things, give form and thought 
and poignancy to the most matter-of-fact existence ; show peo- 
I)le how to think and live and appreciate beauty. What does 
it matter if some of them jeer at you, or trample on your 
work? What matters is that those for whom your message 
is intended will know you by your work." 

— Stacy Aumonier, Just Outside. 
I 

Of all living Americans who have contributed to 
the advance of English poetry in the twentieth 
century, no one has given more both as prophet 
and priest than Vachol Lindsay. His poems are 
notable for originality, pictorial beauty, and thrill- 
ing music. He belongs to no modern school, but 

213 



214 ADVAXCE OF EXOT.TSTT POETKY 

is doing- his best to found one; and -svhen I think 
of his lovo of a loud noise, I eall him a Cymbalist. 
Yet when I use the word noise to describe 
his verse, I use it not only in its present, but in 
its earlier meaniui;-, as when Fidniiiiid Waller 
sainted Ohloris with 

Whilo I listen to thy voice. 

Ohloris! 1 fool my lifo dooay ; 
That poworful noiso 

Calls my tlittiiii: soul away. 

This use of the word, meaning- an agreeable, 
harmonious sound, was current from Chaucer to 
Coleridge. 

My tirst acquaintance with ^Ir. Lindsay's poetry 
began with a masterpiece, Ocncral WiWuitn Booth 
Enicrs into Ilcaroi. Karly in the year ^9\'^, be- 
fore I had become a subscriber to Harriet ^Ion- 
roe's Poet r I/. 1 found among the clippings in tlie 
back of a copy of the Independent this extraordi- 
nary burst of nmsics I carried it in my pocket for 
a year. Nothing since Francis Thompson's /// Xo 
Stranfie Land had given me such a spinal chill. 
Later I learned that it had appeared for the tirst 
time in the issue of Poetru for January, 1913. All 
lovers of verse (nvo a debt of gratitude to Miss 
!Monroe for bringing the new poet to the attention 
of the public; and all students of contemporary 
movements in metre ought to subscribe to her 
monthly magazine; the numbers naturally vary in 
value, but almost anv one mav contain a "tind"; 



VACIIEL LINDSAY 215 

us I discovered to my pleasure in reading Niagara 
ill the summer of 1917. 

Nicholas Vachel Lindsay — Vachel rimes with 
liaehel — was born at Sprini^liohl, Illinois— which 
rimes with boy — on the tenth of November, 1S71), 
His pen name omits the Nicholas. For three 
years he was a student at lliram College in Ohio, 
and for five years an art student, first at Chicago, 
and then at New York. This brings us to the year 
I!)!);'). From that year until ID 10 he drew strange 
])ictnres, lectured on various subjects, and wrote 
detiant and peculiar ''bulletins." At the same 
time he became a tramp, making long pilgrimages 
afoot in 190(> through Florida, (Georgia, the 
(\-irolinas, and in 1908 he invaded in a like man- 
ner some of the Northern and Fasiern States. 
These wanderings are described with vigour, 
vivacity, and contagious good humour in his book 
called A Handy Guide for Beggars. His wallet 
contained nothing but printed leaflets — his poems 
— which he exchanged for bed and board. lie was 
the Evangelist of Beauty, i)reaching his gospel 
everywhere by reciting his verses. In the sum- 
mer of 1912 he walked from Illinois to New Mexico. 

To understand his development, one should 
read his books not according to the dates of formal 
publication, but in the following order: A llandg 
Guide for Beggars, Adventures While Preaching 
the Gospel of Beauty, The Art of the Moving 
Picture — these three being mainly in prose. Then 
one is ready for the three volumes of poetry, 



216 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETKY 

General William Booth Enters into Heaven 
(1913), The Congo (1914), and The Chinese Night- 
ingale (1917). Another prose work is well under 
way, The Golden Book of Springfield, concerning 
which Mr. Lindsay tells me, ''The actual Golden 
Book is a secular testament about Springfield, to 
be given to the city in 2018, from a mysterious 
source. My volume is a hypothetical forecast of 
the times of 2018, as well as of the Golden Book. 
Frankly the Lindsay the reviewers know came 
nearer to existing twelve years ago than today, 
my manuscripts are so far behind my notes. And 
a thing that has helped in this is that through 
changing publishers, etc., my first prose book is 
called my latest. If you want my ideas in order, 
assume the writer of the Handy Guide for Beg- 
gars is just out of college, of Adventures While 
Preaching beginning in the thirties, and the Art 
of the Moving Picture half-way through the 
thirties. The Moving Picture book in the last half 
embodies my main social ideas of two years ago. 
In mood and method, you will find The Golden 
Book of Springfield a direct descendant of the gen- 
eral social and religious philosophy which I 
crowded into the photoplay book whether it be- 
longed there or not. I hope you will do me the 
favour and honour to set my work in this order in 
your mind, for many of my small public still think 
A Handy Guide for Beggars the keynote of my 
present work. But it was really my first wild 
dash." 



VACHEL LINDSAY 217 

The above letter was written 8 August, 19.17. 

Like many creative writers, Mr. Lindsay is an 
artist not only with the pen, but with the pencil. 
He has made drawings since childhood; drawing 
and writing still divide his time and energy. The 
first impression one receives from the pictures is 
like that produced by the poems — strangeness. 
The best have that Baconian element of strange- 
ness in the proportion which gives the final touch 
to beauty; the worst are merely bizarre. He 
says, ''My claim for them is that while laboured 
and struggling in execution, they represent a 
study of Egyptian hieroglyphics and Japanese 
art, two most orthodox origins for art, and have 
no relation whatever to cubism, post-impression- 
ism, or futurism. ... I have been very fond of 
Swinburne all my life, and I should say my draw- 
ing is nearer to his ornate mood than any of my 
writing has been. But that is a matter for your 
judgment. ' ' I find his pictures so interesting that 
I earnestly hope he will some day publish a large 
collection of them in a separate volume. 

One of his latest developments is the idea of the 
Poem Game, which is elaborated with interesting 
poetic illustrations in the volume called The Chi- 
nese Nightingale. In giving his directions and 
suggestions in the latter part of this book, he 
remarks, ''The present rhymer has no ambitions 
as a stage manager. The Poem Game idea, in 
its rhythmic picnic stage, is recommended to 
amateurs, its further development to be on their 



218 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

own initiative. Informal parties might divide 
into groups of dancers and groups of chanters. 
The whole might be worked out in the spirit in 
which children play King William was King 
James's Son, London Bridge. . . . The main revo- 
lution necessary for dancing improvisers, who 
would go a longer way with the Poem Game idea, 
is to shake off the Isadora Duncan and the Rus- 
sian precedents for a while, and abolish the or- 
chestra and piano, replacing all these with the 
natural meaning and cadences of English speech. 
The work would come closer to acting than danc- 
ing is now conceived." 

ilere is a good opportunity for house parties, 
in the intervals of Red Cross activities; and at 
the University of Chicago, 15 February, 1918, 
The Chinese Nightingale was given with a full 
chorus of twelve girls, selected for their speaking 
voices. From the testimony of one of the pro- 
fessors at the university, it is clear that the per- 
formance was a success, realizing something of 
Mr. Lindsay's idea of the union of the arts, with 
Poetry at the centre. 

Among the games given in verse by the author 
in the latter part of The Chinese Nightingale 
volume is one called The Potatoes' Dance, which 
appears to me to approach most closely to the 
original purpose. It is certainly a jolly poem. 
But whether these games are played by laughing 
choruses of youth or only by the firelight in the 
fancy of a solitary reader, the validity of Vachel 



VACHEL LINDSAY 219 

Lindsay's claim to the title of Poet may be settled 
at once by witnessing the transformation of a 
filthy rumhole into a sunlit forest. As Edmond 
Rostand looked at a dunghill, and saw the vision 
of Chantecler, so Vachel Lindsay looked at some 
drunken niggers and saw the vision of the Congo. 

Fat black bucks in a wine-barrel room, 

Barrel-house kings, with feet unstable, 

Sagged and reeled and pounded on the table, 

Pounded on the table, 

Beat an empty barrel with the handle of a broom, 

Hard as they were able, 

Boom, boom. Boom, 

With a silk umbrella and the handle of a broom, 

Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, Boom. 

Then I had religion. Then I had a vision, 

I could not turn from their revel in derision. 

Then I saw the Congo, creeping through the black. 

Cutting through the forest with a golden track. 

Then along that river bank 

A thousand miles 

Tattooed cannibals danced in files; 

Then I heard the boom of the blood-lust song 

And a thigh-bone beating on a tin-pan gong. . . . 

A negro fairyland swung into view, 

A minstrel river 

Where dreams come true. 

The ebony palace soared on high 

Through the blossoming trees to the evening sky. 

The inlaid porches and easements shone 

With gold and ivory and elephant-bone. . . . 

Just then from the doorway, as fat as shotes. 

Came the cake-walk princes in their long red coats, 

Canes with a brilliant lacquer shine. 

And tall silk hats that were red as wine. 

And they pranced with their butterfly partners there, 

Coal-black maidens with pearls in their hair. 



L^i\) Ain'ANOE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

Knoo-skirts trinmiod with the jassamiiie swtvt. 
Ami bolls on thoir aiiklos ;md littlo hhii'k-tVot. 

There are those who call this nonsense and its 
anthor a nionntebank. I call it poetry and its 
author a poet. Von never heard anythiuir like it 
before; but do not be afraid of your own enjoy- 
ment. Head it aloud a dozen times, and you, too, 
will hear roaring-, epic nnisie. and you will see the 
mighty, golden river eutting through the forest. 

I do not know how many towns I have visited 
where I have heard "AVhat do yon think of ^'aehel 
Lindsay? lie was hero last month anti reeited 
his verses. Alost o( his andienee were puzzled." 
Yet they remembered him. What would have 
happened if T had asked them to give me a brief 
synopsis of the leeture they heard yesterday on 
*'Tlie ]\[essag-e of John Knskin"f Fear not, little 
tloek. Vaehel Lindsay is an authentic wandering 
minstrel. The tine phrases you heard yesterday 
were like snow upon the desert's dusty face, light- 
ing a little hour or two, is gone. 

(lOicral ]VilHa))i HootJi Knfcrs info Ilciircn — 
with the accompanying instruments, which blare 
out from the printed pagt^ — is a sublime interpre- 
tation o( one of the varieties of religious experi- 
ence. Two works of genius have been written 
about the Salvation Army — Major Barbara and 
General Williatn Booth Enters into llearen. But 
Major Barbara, with its almost appalling clever- 
ness — Granville Barker says the second act is the 
tinest thing Shaw ever composed — is written. 



VACHEL LINDSAY 221 

nfter all. from (ho son! of the scornful, liko a 
motropolitaii reporter at a (lospel tent ; Mr. Lind- 
say's poem is written from the inside, from the 
very heart of the mystery. It is interpretation, 
wot description. "Booth was blind," says ^Ir. 
Lindsay; "all reformers are blind." One must 
in turn be blind to many obvious thinu,-s, blind to 
ridicule, blind to criticism, blind to the wisdom 
oi' this world, if one would understand a phenom- 
enon like General Booth. 

Booth lod boldly with his bij; bass drum — 

(Are you washed in the blood of tho Lamb?) 

Tho Saints smilod srravoly «j\d thoy said: "Ho's come." 

(Are you washed in the blood of the Ijamb?) .... 

Walkinjr lepei"s followed, rank on rank, 

Lurehinj:: bravoes from the ditehes dank, 

Drabs from the alleyways and druj; liends ])ale — 

Minds still passion-ridden, soul-powei-s frail: — 

Vormin-eaten saints with mouldy breath. 

Unwashed lej^ions with the ways of Death — 

(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?) .... 

And when Booth halted by the eurb for prayer 

lie saw his Master thro' the flasj-tilled air. 

Christ came jjently with a T\>be and erown 

For Booth the soldier, while the thronjr knelt down. 

He saw Kinj; Jesus. They were faee to faee, 

And he kiu^lt a-weeping in that holy plaee. 

(Are ymi washed in the blood of the Lamb?) 

Dante and Milton were more successful in mak- 
inij: pictures of hell than of heaven — no one has 
ever made a conunon conception of heaven more 
pennanently vivid than in this poem. 

See how amid the welter of crowds and the 



222 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

deafening crash of drums and banjos the individ- 
ual faces stand out in the golden light. 

Big-voieed lassies made their banjos bang, 
Tranced, fanatical they shrieked and sang. . . . 
Bull-necked convicts with that land make free. . . . 
The lame were straightened, withered limbs uncurled 
And blind eyes opened on a new, sweet world. . . . 
Gone was the weasel-head, the snout, the jowl ! 
Sages and sibyls now, and athletes clean. 
Rulers of empires, and of forests green! 

It is a pictorial, musical, and spiritual master- 
piece. I am not afraid to call it a spiritual mas- 
terpiece ; for to any one who reads it as we should 
read all true poetry, with an unconditional sur- 
render to its magic. General William Booth and 
his horde will not be the only persons present 
who will enter into heaven. 

Vachel Lindsay needs plenty of room for his 
imagination — the more space he has in which to 
disport himself, the more impressive he becomes. 
His strange poem, How I Walked Alone in the 
Jungles of Heaven, has the vasty sweep con- 
genial to his powers. Simon Legree is as ac- 
curate an interpretation of the negro 's conception 
of the devil and of hell as General William Booth 
is of the Salvation Army's conception of heaven, 
though it is not so fine a poem. When he rises 
from hell or descends from heaven, he loves big, 
boundless things on the face of the earth, like the 
Western Plains and the glory of Niagara. The 
contrast between the bustling pettiness of the 



VACHEL LINDSAY 223 

artificial city of Buffalo and the eternal fresh 
beauty of Niagara is like Bunyan's vision of the 
man busy with the muck-rake while over his head 
stood an angel with a golden crown. 

Within the town of Buffalo 
Are prosy men with leaden eyes. 
Like ants they worry to and fro, 
(Important men, in Buffalo). 
But only twenty miles away 
A deathless glory is at play : 
Niagara, Niagara. . . . 

Above the town a tiny bird, 

A shining speck at sleepy dawn, 

Forgets the ant-hill so absurd. 

This self-important Buffalo. 

Descending twenty miles away 

He bathes his wings at break of day — 

Niagara, Niagara. 

True poet that he is, Vachel Lindsay loves to 
show the contrast between transient noises that 
tear the atmosphere to shreds and the eternal 
beauty of unpretentious melody. After the thun- 
der and the lightning comes the still, small voice. 
Who ever before thought of comparing the roar 
of the swiftly passing motor-cars with the sweet 
singing of the stationary bird? Was there ever 
in a musical composition a more startling change 
from fortissimo to pianissimo? 

Listen to the iron-horns, ripping, racking. 
Listen to the quack-homs, slack and clacking. 
Way down the road, trilling like a toad. 
Here comes the dice-horn, here comes the vice-horn, 
Here comes the snarl-horn, hrawl-horn, lewd-horn, 



224 ADVAXCE OF KXOTJSII TOKTRY 

Followed by the j:)rH<?t'-horn. bleak and squeivking: — 
(Some of them tnnu Kansas, some of them fivm Kansas.) 
Here oomes the ^j<)<M\orn. /)/o(/-horn. >-i)(M»orn, 
Kevermore-to-r()(iMi-horn. /(>(iM»-horu. ?i()rHt-horn. 
(Some of them fn>m Kansa:?. some of them from Kansas.) 

Far awav tlie Kaehel-Jane 

Not defeated by tlie horns, 

SiiiiTS amid a hedge of thorns: — 

"Love and life. 

Eternal youtli — 

Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet. 

Dew and jrlory. 

Love and truth, 

Swtvt, sweet, sweet, sweet." 

Oi' Mr. Lindsay V proso works the one tirst writ- 
ten, A IIcDidjf Guide for Hc(}(jnrs, is by all odds 
the best. Even if it did not contain nuisical 
cadenzas, any reader wonld know that the antlior 
was a poet. It is t'nll of the spirit of joyons yonnix 
manhood and reckless advent nre. and lanii'hs its 
way into onr hearts. There is no reason why 
Mr. Lindsay shonld over apolog'iz.e for this book, 
oven if it does not represent his present attitnde: 
it is as individnal as a diary, and as universal as 
yonth. His htter prose is more careful, possibly 
niore thoug-htful, more full of information; but 
this has a touch of genins. Its successor, Adren- 
titres While Preaehina the iuK<pel of Bcautu. does 
not quite recapture the tirst tine careless rapture. 
Yet both nuist be read by students of Mr. Lind- 
say's verse, not only because they display his 
personality, but because the original data of many 
poems can be found among these experiences o\' 



VACHEL LINDSAY 225 

the road. For oxaniplo, TJic liro)icho That Would 
Not /)<• Iholru, wliioli tirst appoarod in 1917, is 
Iho rinuHl wrsion of an iiK'idout that liappoiied 
ill July, 11)12. 11 luado an iiidoliblo impression 
on tho aniatonr t'arnior, and tiio [)o«.'ni has a poiij:- 
nant beauty that nothiui^- will ever erase from the 
reader's mind. I feel certain that 1 shall have a 
vivid reeolleetion o\' this poem to the last day of 
my life, assuming that on that last day I can 
remember anything at all. 

A more ambitious prose work than either of the 
tramp books is TJic Art of the Moruuf PictKrc. 
It is rather singular that Mr. l^indsay, whose 
poetry primarily ap[)eals to the ear, should be so 
profoundly interested in an art whose only appeal 
is to the eye. The reason, perhaps, is twofold. 
He is professionally a maker of pictures as well 
as of chants, and he is an apostle of democracy. 
The moving picture is the most democratic form of 
art that the world has ever seen. Maude Adams 
reaches thousands; JNlary Pickford reaches mil- 
lions. It is clear that Mr. Lindsay wishes that 
the limitless inflnenee of the moving picture may 
be used to elevate and ennoble America ; for here 
is the greatest force ever known through which 
hi« gospel may be preached — the gospel of beauty. 

Like so many other original artists, Mr. Lind- 
say's poetry really goes back to the origins of 
the art. As John Masefield is the twentieth cen- 
tury Chaucer, so ^^•lchel I.indsay is the twentieth 
century minstrel. On the one occiision when he 



22G ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

met W. B. Yoats, the Irishman asked him point- 
Wank, ''What are we going to do to restore the 
primitive singing of poetry?" and would not stay 
for an answer. Fortunately the question was put 
to a man who answered it by accomplishment ; the 
best answer to any question is not an elaborate 
theory, but a demonstration. As it is sometimes 
supposed that Mr. Lindsay's poetry owes its in- 
spiration to Mr. Yeats, it may be well to state 
here positively that our American owes nothing to 
the Irishman; his poetry developed quite inde- 
pendently of the other's influence, and would have 
been much the same had Mr. Yeats never risen 
above the horizon. When I say that he owes 
nothing, I mean he owes nothing in the manner 
and fashion of his art ; he has a consuming admira- 
tion for Mr. Yeats 's genius; for Mr. Lindsay con- 
siders him of all living men the author of the 
most beautiful poetry. 

Chants are only about one-tenth of Vacliel Lind- 
say's work. However radical in subject, they 
are conservative in form, following the precedents 
of the ode from its origin. It is necessary to in- 
sist that while the material is new, the method is 
consciously old. He is no imiovator in rime or 
rhythm. But the chants, while few in number, are 
the most individual part of his production; and 
up to the year 1918 — the most impressive. 

For in The Congo we have real minstrelsy. 
The shoulder-notes, giving detailed directions for 
singing, reciting, intouing, are as charming in 



VACHEL LINDSAY 227 

their way as the stage-directions of J. M. Barrie. 
They not only show the aim of the poet ; they ad- 
mit the reader immediately into an inner com- 
munion with the spirit of the poem. 

Every one who reads The Congo or who hears 
it read cannot help enjoying it; which is one 
reason why so many are afraid to call it a great 
poem. For a similar reason, some critics are 
afraid to call Percy Grainger a great composer, 
because of his numerous and delightful audacities. 
Yet The Congo is a great poem, possessing as it 
does many of the high qualities of true poetry. 
It shows a splendid power of imagination, as fresh 
as the forests it describes ; it blazes with glorious 
colours; its music transports the listener with 
climax after climax; it interprets truthfully the 
spirit of the negro race. 

I should not think of attempting to determine 
the relative position of Percy Grainger in music 
and of Vachel Lindsay in poetry; but it is clear 
that both men possess an amazing vitality. Is 
it not the lack of vital force which prevents so 
many accomplished artists from ever rising above 
the crowd? I suppose we have all read reams 
on reams of magazine verse exhibiting technical 
correctness, exactitude in language, and pretty 
fancy; and after a momentary unspoken tribute 
to the writer's skill, we straightway forget. But 
when a poem like Danny Deever appears, it is 
vain to call it a music-hall ballad, or to pretend 
that it is not high art; the fact is that the worst 



228 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETEY 

memory in the world will retain it. Such a poem 
comes like a breeze into a close chamber; it is 
charged with vitality. We are in contact with a 
new force — a force emanating from that mysteri- 
ous and inexhaustible stream whence comes every 
manifestation of genius. To have this super- 
vitality is to have genius ; and although one may 
have with it many distressing faults of expression 
and an unlimited supply of bad taste, all other 
qualities combined cannot atone for the absence of 
this one primal element. Indeed the excess of 
wealth in energy is bound to produce shocking ex- 
crescences ; our Springfield poet is sometimes ab- 
surd when he means to be sublime, bizarre when 
he means to be picturesque. The same is true of 
Walt Whitman — it is true of all creative writers 
whom John Burroughs calls primary men, in dis- 
tinction from excellent artists who remain in the 
secondary class. Mark Twain, Eudyard Kipling, 
Walt Whitman, John Masefield, Vachel Lindsay 
are primary men. 

I have often wondered who would write a poem 
worthy of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado. 
Vachel Lindsay is the only living American who 
could do it, and I hope he will accept this chal- 
lenge. Its awful majesty can be revealed only 
in verse; for it is one of the very few wonders 
of the world which no photograph and no paint- 
ing can ever reproduce. Who ever saw a picture 
that gave him any conception of this incomparable 
spectacle? 



VACHEL LINDSAY 229 

In order to understand the primary impulse 
that drove Mr. Lindsay into writing verse and 
making pictures, one ought to read first of all his 
poem The Tree of Laughing Bells, or The Wings 
of the Morning. The first half of the title ex- 
hibits his love of resounding harmonies; the sec- 
ond gives an idea of the range of his imagination. 
His finest work always combines these two ele- 
ments, melody and elevation, ''and singing still 
dost soar, and soaring ever singest." I hope that 
the picture he drew for The Tree of Laughing 
Bells may some time be made available for all 
students of his work, as it was his first serious 
design. 

Vachel Lindsay is essentially honest, for he 
tries to become himself exactly what he hopes 
the future American will be. He is a Puritan with 
a passion for Beauty; he is a zealous reformer 
filled with Falstafifian mirth; he goes along the 
highway, singing and dancing, distributing tracts. 
"Apollo's first, at last the true God's priest." 

We know that two mighty streams, the Eenais- 
sance and the Reformation, which flowed side by 
side without mingling, suddenly and completely 
merged in Spenser's Faery Queene. That im- 
mortal song is a combination of ravishing sweet- 
ness and moral austerity. Later the Puritan be- 
came the Man on Horseback, and rode roughshod 
over every bloom of beauty that lifted its delicate 
head. Despite the genius of Milton, supreme 
artist plus supreme moralist, the Puritans man- 



230 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

aged somehow to force into tlie common mind an 
antagonism between Beauty and Morality which 
persists even unto this day. There is no reason 
why those two contemporaries, Oscar Wilde and 
the Rev. Charles H. Spurgeon, should stand be- 
fore the London public as the champions of con- 
tending armies ; for Beauty is an end in itself, not 
a means, and so is Conduct. 

In the best work of Vachel Lindsay, we find 
these two qualities happily married, the zest for 
beauty and the hunger and thirst after righteous- 
ness. He made a soap-box tour for the Anti- 
Saloon League, preaching at the same time the 
Gospel of Beauty. As a rule, reformers are lack- 
ing in the two things most sedulously cultivated by 
commercial travellers and life-insurance agents, 
tact and humour. If these interesting orders of 
the Knights of the Road were as lacking in genial- 
ity as the typical reformer, they would lose their 
jobs. And yet fishers of men, for that is what all 
reformers are, try to fish without bait, at the same 
time making much loud and otfensive speech. 
Then they are amazed at the callous indifference 
of humanity to ''great moral issues." 

Vachel Lindsay is irresistibly genial. Nor is 
any of this geniality made up of the professionally 
ingratiating smile ; it is the foundation of his tem- 
perament. What has this got to do with his 
poetry? It has everything to do with it. It gives 
him the key to the hearts of children ; to the basic 



VACHEL LINDSAY 231 

savagery of a primitive black or a poor white; 
to peripatetic harvesters; to futurists, imagists, 
blue-stockings, pedants of all kinds ; to evangelists, 
college professors, drunken sailors, tramps whose 
robes are lined with vermin. He is the great 
American democrat, not because that is his politi- 
cal theory, but simply because he cannot help it. 

His attitude toward other schools of art, even 
when he has nothing in common with them, is posi- 
tively affectionate. Could there be two poets more 
unlike in temperament and in style than Mr. Lind- 
say and Mr. Masters? Yet in the volume. The 
Chinese Nightingale, we have a poem dedicated 
' * to Edgar Lee Masters, with great respect. ' ' He 
speaks of ''the able and distinguished Amy 
Lowell," and of his own poems ''parodied by my 
good friend, Louis Untermeyer. " He says, "I 
admire the work of the Imagist Poets. We ex- 
change fraternal greetings. . . . But neither my 
few heterodox pieces nor my many struggling 
orthodox pieces conform to their patterns. . . . 
The Imagists emphasize pictorial effects, while 
the Higher Vaudeville exaggerates musical ef- 
fects. Imagists are apt to omit rhyme, while in 
my Higher Vaudeville I often put five rhymes on 
a line." 

Impossible to quarrel with Vachel Lindsay. 
His stock of genial tolerance is inexhaustible, and 
makes him regard not only hostile humans, but 
even destructive insects, with inquisitive affection. 



232 Ain ANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

I want livo tliinirs in Ihoir pviilo to rinnain. 
1 will not kill ono irvasshoppor vain 
'rhough ho oats a liolo in my shirt liko a door. 
I lot hiTU ont. irivo him ono ohanoo moro. 
Torhaps, whilo ho srna\N-s my hat in his whim, 
Orasshoppor lyrii's ooi'nr to him. 

nnriug- his tramps, the parents who iiiuvllling'ly 
rocoivod him disoovorod, when ho bognn to rooito 
storios to their chikiroii, that they had entertained 
an aiigvl nnawares; anil I have not the slig-htest 
doubt that, on the frequent ooeasions when his ap- 
plication for t'ooil and lodging- was received with 
a volley of curses, he honestly admirctl the noble 
fluency of his enemy. When he was harvesting, 
the singing stacker became increasingly and dis- 
tressingly pornographic; instead of rebuking him 
for foulness, which would only have bewildered 
the stacker, Mr. Lindsay taught him the first 
stanza of Swinburne's chorus. "The next morn- 
ing when my friend climbed into our barge to 
ride to the field he began: 

"Whon tho hounds of sprinc: :nv on wintor's traoos. 
'Pho mothor of months, in n\ondow or plain. 
Fills tho shadows — 

'Panunit, what's the rest of it? I've been trying 
to recite that piece all night.' Now he has the 
first four stanzas. And last evening he left for 
Dodgo City to stay overnight and Sunday, lie 
was resolved to purchase Atnhuita in Caii/don and 
find in the Public Library 7"//(' /.(/(/.// of Shalott 



VACHEL LINDSAY 233 

and The Blessed Danio:::el, besides paying- the 
usual visit to his wife and children." 

If a man cannot understand music, painting-, 
and poetry without loving these arts, neither can 
a man understand men and women and children 
without loving: them. This is one reason why even 
the cleverest cynicism is never more than half the 
truth, and usually less. 

^Ir. Lindsay is a poet, and a missionary. As a 
missionary, he wishes all Americ^ms to be as 
good judges of poetry as they are, let us say, of 
baseball. One of the numerous joys of being a 
professional ball-player must be the knowledge 
that you are exhibiting your art to a prodigious 
assembly of qualitied critics. John Sargent knows 
that the majority of persons who gaze at his 
picture of President Wilson are incompetent to 
express any opinion ; his subtlety is lost or quite 
misunderstood; but Tyrus Kaymond Cobb knows 
that the thousands who daily watch him during the 
sunnuer months appreciate his consununate mas- 
tery of the game. Vachel Lindsay, I suppose, 
wants millions not merely to love, but io detect 
the liner shades of the poetic art. 

If he set out to accomplish this dream by lower- 
ing the standards of poetry, then he would debase 
the public and be a traitor to his guild. Rut his 
method is uncompromising — he taught the harv- 
ester not Mrs. Hemans. but Swinburne. lie calls 
his own verse the higher vaudeville. But 'The 



234 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

Co)i()o is the higher vaudeville as Macbeth is the 
higher melodrama. And there is neither melo- 
drama nor vaudeville in Abraham Lincoln Walks 
at Miihiiijht — a poem of stern and solemn majesty, 

Mr. Lindsay is true to the oldest traditions of 
poetry in his successful attempts to make his 
verses ring and sing. He is both antique and 
antic. But he is absolutely contemporary, ''mod- 
ern," *'new," in his fearlessness. He has this in 
common with the practicers of free verse, with 
the imagists, with the futurists; he is not in the 
least afraid of seeming ridiculous. There can be 
no progress in art until artists overcome wholly 
this blighting fear. It is the lone individual, 
with his name stamped all over him, charging into 
the safely anonymous mass; but that way lies 
the Advance. 

When Thomas Carlyle took up the study of 
Oliver Cromwell, he found that all previous his- 
torians had tried to answer this question: What 
is tlie mask that Oliver wore? xVnd suddenly the 
true answer came to him in the form of another 
question: What if it should prove to be no mask 
at all, but just the man 's own face 1 So there are 
an increasingly large number of readers who are 
discerning in the dauntless gambols of Vaehel 
Lindsay, not the mask of butfoonery, worn to at- 
tract attention, but a real poet, dancing gaily with 
bronchos, children, tield-mice and potatoes. 

Such unquenchable vitality, such bubbling ex- 
uberance, cannot always be graceful, cannot al- 



ROBERT FROST 235 

ways be impressive. But the blunders of an or- 
iginal man are sometimes more fruitful than the 
correctness of a copyist. Furthermore, blunders 
sometimes make for wisdom and truth. I^et us 
not forget Vachel Lindsay's poem on Columbus: 

Would that Ave had the fortunes of Columbus, 

Sailing his caravels a trackless "way, 

He fouud a Universe — he sought Cathay. 

God give sucli dawns as when, his venture o'er, 

The Sailor looked upon San Salvador. 

God lead us past the setting of tlie sun 

To wizard islands, of august surprise ; 

God make our blundei"s wise. 

COLD PASTORAL! 

The difference between Vachel Lindsay and 
Robert Frost is the difference between a drum- 
major and a botanist. The former marches gaily 
at the head of his big band, looking up and around 
at the crowd; the latter finds it sweet 

Avith unuplifted eyes 
To pace the ground, if path be there or none. 

Robert Frost, the poet of New England, was 
born at San Francisco, and published his iirst vol- 
ume in London. Midway between these two cities 
lies the enchanted ground of his verse ; for he be- 
longs to New England as wholly as Whittier, as 
truly as Mr. Lindsay belongs to Illinois. He 
showed his originality so early as the twenty-sixth 
of March, 1875, by being born at San Francisco; 
for although I have known hundreds of happy 



236 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

Calit'ornians. moii and women whoso love for 
tlioir groat State is a relig-ion, Kobert Frost is the 
only person I ever met who was born there. That 
beautiful country is frequently used as a spring- 
board to heaven; and that I can understand, 
for the transition is less violent than from some 
other points of departure. But why so few na- 
tives i 

Shamelessly I lift the following biographical 
facts from Miss Amy Lowell's admirable essay on 
our poet. At the age of ten, the boy was moved 
to Lawrence, Massachusetts. He went to school, 
and disliked the experience. He tried Dartmouth 
and later Harvard, staying a few months at the 
first and two years at the second. Between these 
academic experiences he was married. In 1900 
he began farming in New Hampshire. In 1911 
he taught school, and in 1912 went to England. 
His lirst book of poems, A Boi/'s Will, was pub- 
lished at London in 191o. The review in The 
Acadcnii/ was ecstatic. Li 1914 he went to live 
at Ledbury, where John Masetield was born, and 
where in the neighbourhood dwelt AV. AV. Gibson. 
His second volume. North of Boston, was pub- 
lished at London in 1914. Miss Lowell quotes a 
sentence, full of insight, from the review in the 
Times. *' Poetry burns up out of it. as when a 
faint wind breathes upon smouldering embers." 
Li March, 1915, Mr. Frost returned to America, 
bringing his reputation with him. He bought a 
farm in New Hampshire among the mountains. 



EGBERT FROST 237 

and in lOlO appeared his third vohimo, Mountain 
Infcrral. 

AVas there ever a better ilhistration of the un- 
critical association of names than the popuhir 
couplini^- of Robert Frost with Edgar Lee Mas- 
ters? They are simihir in one respect; they are 
both poets. But in the g-kirious army of poets, 
it would be difficult to tind two contemporaries 
more wholly unlike both in the spirit and in the 
form of their work than Mr. Frost and Mr. Mas- 
ters. Mr. Frost is as far from free verse as he 
can stretch, as far as Longfellow; and while he 
sometimes writes in an ironical mood, he never 
indulges himself in cAmicism. As a matter of 
fact, Mr. Frost is nearer in his art to Mr. Lind- 
say than to Mr. Masters ; for his theory of poetry, 
which I confess I cannot understand, requires the 
poet to choose words entirely with reference to 
their spoken value. 

His poetry is more interesting and clearer than 
his theories about it. I once heard him give a 
combination reading-lecture, and after he had 
read some of his poems, all of which are free from 
obscurity, he began to explain his ideas on how 
poetry should be written. He did this with charm- 
ing modesty, but his "explanations" were opaque. 
After he had continued in this vein for some time, 
he asked the audience which they would prefer to 
have him do next — read some more of his poems, 
or go on talking about poetry? lie obtained from 
his hearers an immediate response, picked up his 



238 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

book, and read in admirable fashion his excellent 
verse. We judge poets by their poems, not by 
their theories. 

Robert Frost is an out-door poet. Even when 
he gives a picture of an interior, the people are 
always looking out of the windows at something 
or other. In his poems we follow the procession 
of the seasons, with the emphasis on autumn and 
winter. One might be surprised at the infre- 
quency of his poems on spring, were it not for 
the fact that his knowledge of the country is so 
precise and definite. Spring is more beautiful in 
the city than in the country; it comes with less 
alloy. No one has ever drawn a better picture of 
a country road in the pouring rain, where "the 
hoof-prints vanish away." 

In spite of his preoccupation with the exact 
value of oral words, he is not a singing lyrist. 
There is not much bel canto in his volumes. Nor 
do any of his poems seem spontaneous. He is 
a thoughtful man, given to meditation ; the mean- 
est flower or a storm-bedraggled bird will lend 
him material for poetry. But the expression of 
his poems does not seem naturally fluid. I sus- 
pect he has blotted many a line. He is as de- 
liberate as Thomas Hardy, and cultivates the 
lapidary style. Even in the conversations fre- 
quently introduced into his pieces, he is as eco- 
nomical with words as his characters are with 
cash. This gives to his work a hardness of out- 
line in keeping with the New England tempera- 



ROBERT FROST 239 

ment and the New Hampshire climate. There is 
no doubt that much of his peculiarly effective 
dramatic power is gained by his extremely care- 
ful expenditure of language. 

It is, of course, impossible to prescribe bound- 
ary lines for a poet, although there are critics who 
seem to enjoy staking out a poet's claim. While 
I have no intention of building futile walls around 
Mr. Frost's garden, nor erecting a sign with the 
presumptuous prohibition of trespassing beyond 
them, it is clear that he has himself chosen to 
excel in quality of produce rather than in variety 
and range. In the first poem of the first volume, 
he concludes as follows: 

They would not find me changed from him they knew — 
Only more sure of all I thought was true. 

This is certainly a precise statement of the impres- 
sion made on the reader who studies his three 
books in chronological order. A Boy's Will, as 
befits a youth who has lived more in himself than 
in the world, is more introspective than either 
North of Boston or Mountain Interval; but this 
habit of introspection gave him both the method 
and the insight necessary for the accurate study 
of nature and neighbours. He discovered what 
other people were like, simply by looking into his 
own heart. And in A Boy's Will we find that 
same penetrating examination of rural scenes and 
common objects that gives to the two succeeding 
works the final stamp of veracity. I do not re- 



240 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETEY 

member ever having seen a phrase like the follow- 
ing, though the phrase instantly makes the famil- 
iar picture leap into that empty space ever be- 
fore the reader's eye — that space, which like bare 
wall-paper, seems to demand a picture on its sur- 
face. 

Or highway where the slow wheel pours the 



It is fortunate that the law of diminishing re- 
turns — which every farmer is forced to heed — 
does not apply to pastoral poets. Out of the same 
soil Robert Frost has successfully raised three 
crops of the same produce. He might reply that 
in the intervals he has let the ground lie fallow 
— but my impression is that he is really working 
it all the time. 

The sharp eye of the farmer sees nothing missed 
by our poet, but the poet has interpretation as 
well as vision. He not only sees things but sees 
things in their relations; and he knows that not 
only is everything related to every other thing, 
but that all things are related to the eternal mys- 
tery, their source and their goal. This is why 
the yellow primrose is so infinitely more than a 
yellow primrose. This also explains why the 
poems of Mr. Frost, after stirring us to glad rec- 
ognition of their fidelity, leave us in a revery. 

His studies of human nature are the purest 
realism. They are conversations rather than 
arias, for he uses the speaking, not the singing 
voice. Poets are always amazing us, and some 



EGBERT FROST 241 

day Robert Frost may astonish me by writing a 
romantic ballad. It would surely be a surprise, 
for with his lack of operatic accomplishment, and 
his fondness for heroes in homespun, he would 
seem almost ideally unfitted for the task. This 
feeling I find strengthened by his poem called 
An Equal Sacrifice, the only one of his pieces 
where anything like a ballad is attempted, and the 
only one in all three books which seems to be an 
undeviating failure. It is as flat as a pancake, 
and ends with flat moralizing. Mr. Frost is par- 
ticularly unsuccessful at preaching. 

No, apart from his nature poems, his studies of 
men and women are most impressive when they 
follow the lines of Doric simplicity in the manner 
of the powerful stage-plays written by Susan 
Glaspell. The rigidity of the mould seems all the 
better fitted for the suppressed passion it con- 
tains, just as liquid fire is poured into a vessel 
with unyielding sides. His two most successful 
poems of this kind are Home Burial, in North of 
Boston, and Snow, in Mountain Interval. The 
former is not so much a tragedy as the concen- 
trated essence of tragedy. There is enough pain 
in it to furnish forth a dozen funerals. It has 
that centrifugal force which Mr. Calderon so bril- 
liantly suggests as the main characteristic of the 
dramas of Chekhov. English plays are centri- 
petal; they draw the attention of the audience to 
the group of characters on the stage; but Chek- 
hov's, says Mr. Calderon, are centrifugal; they 



242 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

throw our regard off from the actors to the whole 
class of humanity they represent. Just such a 
remark applies to Home Burial; it makes the 
reader think of the thousands of farmhouses dark- 
ened by similar tragedies. Nor is it possible to 
quote a single separate passage from this poem, 
for each line is so necessary to the total effect 
that one must read every word of it to feel its 
significance. It is a masterpiece of tragedy. And 
it is curious, as one continues to think about it, 
as one so often does on finishing a poem by Robert 
Frost, that we are led first to contemplate the 
number of such tragedies, and finally to con- 
template a stretch of life of far wider range — 
the broad, profound difference between a man 
and a woman. Are there any two creatures on 
Grod's earth more unlike? In this poem the 
man is true to himself, and for that very reason 
cannot in his honest, simple heart comprehend 
why he should appear to his own wife as if he 
were some frightful monster. He is perplexed, 
amazed, and finally enraged at the look of loath- 
ing in the wide eyes of his own mate. It was a 
little thing — his innocent remark about a birch 
fence — that revealed to her that she was living 
with a stranger. Grief never possesses a man as 
it does a woman, except when the grief is exclu- 
sively concerned with his own bodily business, as 
when he discovers that he has cancer or tooth- 
ache. To the last day of human life on earth, it 
will seem incomprehensible to a woman that a 



EGBERT FROST 243 

man, on the occasion of a death in the family, can 
sit down and eat with gusto a hearty meal. For 
bodily appetite, which is the first thing to leave 
a woman, is the last to leave a man; and when 
it has left every other part of his frame, it some- 
times has a repulsive survival in his eyes. The 
only bridge that can really cross this fathomless 
chasm between man and woman is the bridge of 
love. 

The dramatic quality of Snow is suspense. The 
object through which the suspense is conveyed to 
the reader is the telephone, employed with such 
tragic effect at the Grand Guignol. Mr. Frost's 
art in colloquial speech has never appeared to 
better advantage than here, and what a wave of 
relief when the voice of Meserve is heard ! It is 
like a resurrection. 

In order fully to appreciate a poem like Mend- 
ing Wall, one should hear Mr. Frost read it. He 
reads it with such interpretative skill, with subtle 
hesitations and pauses for apparent reflection, 
that the poem grows before the audience even as 
the wall itself. He hesitates as though he had a 
word in his hands, and was thinking what would 
be exactly the best place to deposit it — even as 
the farmer holds a stone before adding it to the 
structure. For this poem is not written, it is 
built. It is built of separate words, and like the 
wall it describes, it takes two to build it, the 
author and the reader. When the last line is 
reached, the poem is finished. 



244 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

Nearly every page in the poetry of Robert Frost 
gives us the pleasure of recognition. He is not 
only sincere, he is truthful — by which I mean that 
he not only wishes to tell the truth, but succeeds 
in doing so. This is the fundamental element in 
his work, and will, I believe, give it permanence. 

GOOD HOURS 

I had for my winter evening: walk — 
No one at all witli wlioin to talk, 
But I had the cottages in a row 
Up to their shining eyes in snow. 

And I thought I had the folk within : 
I had the sound of a violin ; 
I had a glimpse through curtain laces 
Of youthful forms and youthful faces. 

I had such company outward bound. 
I went till there wore no cottages found. 
I turned and repented, but coming back 
I saw no window but that was black. 

Over the snow my creaking feet 
Disturbed the slumbering village street 
Like profanation, by your leave, 
At ten o'clock of a winter eve. 

A poem like that gives not only the pleasure of 
recognition ; it has an indescribable charm. It is 
the charm when joy fades, not into sorrow, but 
into a deep, abiding peace. 



CHAPTER IX 

AMY LOWELL, ANNA BRANCH, EDGAR LEE MASTERS, 
LOUIS UNTERMEYER 

Amy Lowell — a patrician — a radical — her education — ner 
years of preparation — vigour and versatility — definitions of 
free verse and of poetry — Wliitnuin's influence — the imaj^ists 
— Patterns — her first book — her rapid improvement — sword 
blades — her gift in narrative — polyphonic prose — Anna 
Hempstead Branch — her dramatic power — domestic i)oems — 
tranquil meditation — an orthodox poet — Edgar Lee Miisters — 
his education — Greek inspiration — a lawyer — Reedi/s Mirror 
— the Anthology — power of the piist — mental vigour — simi- 
larity and variety — irony and sarcasm — passion for truth — 
accentuation of ugliness — analysis — a masterpiece of cynicism 
— an ideal side — the dramatic monologue — defects and limita- 
tions — Louis Untermeyer — his youth — the question of beauty 
— three characteristics — a gust of life — Still Life — old maids 
— burlesques and parodies — tlie newspaper humourists — F. P. 
A. — his two books — his influence on English composition. 

Amon<^ the many American women who arc writ- 
ing verse in the twentieth century, two stand out 
— Amy Lowell and Anna Branch. And indeed I 
can think of no woman in the history of our poetry 
who has surpassed them. Both are bone-bred 
New Englanders. No other resemblance occurs 
to me. 

It is interesting that a cosmopolitan radical like 
Amy Lowell should belong ancestrally so exclus- 
ively to Massachusetts, and to so distinguished a 

245 



24G ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

family. She is a born patrician, and a reborn 
Liberal. James Russell Lowell was a cousin of 
Miss Lowell's grandfather, and her maternal 
grandfather, Abbott Lawrence, was also Minister 
to P]ngland. Her eldest brother, nineteen years 
older than she, was the late Percival Lowell, a 
scientific astronomer with a poetic imagination; 
he was one of the most interesting and charming 
personalities I ever Iniew. His constant encour- 
agement and example were powerful formative in- 
fluences in his sister's develoj)ment. Another 
brother is the President of Harvard, Abbott Law- 
rence Lowell, through whose dignified, penetrat- 
ing, sensible, authoritative speeches and writings 
breathes the old Massachusetts love of liberty. 

Courage is a salient characteristic in Amy 
Lowell. She is afraid of nothing, not even of her 
birthday. Slie was born at Brookline, on the 
ninth of February, 1874. ''Like all young poets, 
I was influenced by everybody in turn, but I think 
the person who affected me most profoundly was 
Keats, although my later work resembles his so 
little. I am a collector of Keats manuscripts, and 
have spent much time in studying his erasures and 
corrections, and they taught me most of what I 
know about poetry; they, and a very interesting 
book which is seldom read today — Leigh Hunt's 
Imagination and Fancy. I discovered the exist- 
ence of Keats through that volume, as my family 
read very little of what was considered in those 
days 'modern poetry'; and, although my father 



AMY LOWELL 247 

had Keats in his library, Shelley was barred, on 
account of his being an atheist. I ran across this 
volume of Leigh Hunt's when I was about fifteen 
and it turned me definitely to poetry." {Letter 
of March, 1918.) 

When she was a child, her family took her on a 
long European tour ; in later years she passed one 
winter on the Nile, another on a fruit ranch in Cali- 
forna, another in visiting Greece and Turkey. In 
1902 she decided to devote her life to writing 
poetry, and spent eight years in faithful study, 
effort, and practice without publishing a word. 
In the Atlantic Monthly for August, 1910, ap- 
peared her first printed verse; and in 1912 came 
her first volume of poems, A Dome of Many-Col- 
oured Glass, the title being a quotation from the 
forbidden Shelley. Since that year she has been 
a notable figure in contemporary literature. Her 
reputation was immensely heightened and wid- 
ened by the publication of her second book, Sword 
Blades and Poppy Seed, in 1914. In 1916 came 
the third volume. Men, Women, and Ghosts. 

She has been a valiant fighter for poetic theory, 
writing many articles on Free Verse, Imagism, 
and kindred themes; and she is the author of two 
works in prose criticism. Six French Poets, in 
1915, and Tendencies in Modern American Poetry, 
in 1917, of which the former is the more valuable 
and important. In five years, then, from 1912 
to 1917, she produced three books of original verse, 
two tall volumes of literary criticism, and a large 



248 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

number of magazine poems and essaj^s — a remark- 
able record both in quantity and quality. 

Vigour and versatility are the words that rise 
in one's mind when thinking of the poetry of 
Amy Lowell. It is absurd to class her as a dis- 
ciple of free verse, or of imagism, or of polyphonic 
prose ; she delights in trying her hand at all three 
of these styles of composition, for she is an ex- 
perimentalist; but much of her work is in the 
strictest orthodox forms, and when she has what 
the Llethodists used to call Uberty, no form or its 
absence can prevent her from writing poetry. 

I can see no reason for either attacking or de- 
fending free verse, and if I had any influence 
witli Miss Lowell, I should advise her to waste no 
more time in the defence of any school or theory, 
because the ablest defence she or any one else can 
make is actually to write poetry in the manner in 
which some crystallized critics say it cannot be 
done. True poetry is recognizable in any gar- 
ment ; and ridicule of the clothes can no more af- 
fect the identity of the article than the attitude 
of Penelope's suitors toward the rags of Ulysses 
atTected his kingship. Let the journalistic wits 
have their fling; it is even permissible to enjoy 
their wit, when it is as cleverly expressed as in 
the following epigram, which I believe appeared 
in the Chicago Tribune: "Free verse is a form 
of theme unworthy of pure prose embodiment de- 
veloped by a person incai)able of pure poetic ex- 
pression." Not at all bad; but as some one said 



AMY LOWELL 249 

of Gr. K. Chesterton, it would be unfair to apply 
to wit the test of truth. It is better to remember 
Coleridge's remark on poetry: '/The opposite 
of poetry is not prose but science ; the opposite of 
prose is not poetry but verse. ' ' Perhaps we could 
say of the polyphonic people that they are well 
versed in prose. 

The amazing- growth of free verse during the 
last ten years has surprised no one more than me, 
and it has convinced me of my lack of prophetic 
clairvoyance. Never an idolater of Walt Whit- 
man, 1 have also never been blind to his genius; 
as he recedes in time his figure grows bigger and 
bigger, like a man in the moving pictures leav- 
ing the screen. But I used to insist rather em- 
phatically that although he was said to be both 
the poet of democracy and the poet of the future, 
he was in fact admired mostly by literary aristo- 
crats ; and that the poets who came after him were 
careful to write in strict composition. In the 
'nineties I looked around me and behold, Kipling, 
Phillips, Watson and Riley were in their work 
at the opposite extreme from Walt Whitman; he 
had not a single disciple of unquestioned poetic 
standing. Now, in the year of grace 1918, though 
he is not yet read by the common people — a thou- 
sand of whom read Longfellow to one who reads 
Whitman — he has a tribe of followers and imita- 
tors, many of whom do their utmost to reach his 
results by his methods, and some of whom enjoy 
eminence. 



250 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETEY 

Those who are interested in the growth of 
imagist poetry in English should read the three 
slender anthologies published respectively in 
1915, 1916, and 1917, called Some Imagist Poets, 
each containing poems nowhere previously 
printed. The short prefaces to the first two vol- 
umes are models of modesty and good sense, 
whether one likes imagist poetry or hates it. Ac- 
cording to this group of poets, which is not a 
coterie or a mutual admiration society, but a 
few individuals engaged in amicable rivalry at the 
same game, the principles of imagism are mainly 
six, of which only the second is a departure from 
the principles that have governed the production 
of poetry in the past. First, to use the exact 
word: second, to create new rhythms: third, to 
allow absolute freedom in the choice of subject; 
fourth, to present an image: fifth, to produce 
poetry that is hard and clear: sixth, to study con- 
centration. 

There are six poets adequately represented in 
each volume ; but the best poem of all is Patterns, 
by Amy Lowell. In spite of having to carry six 
rules in her head while writing it — for if one is 
determined to be *'free" one must sufficiently in- 
dicate the fact — she has written a real poem. It 
strictly conforms to all six requirements, and is 
at the same time simple, sensuous, passionate. 
I like it for many reasons — because it is real, in- 
timate, confidential; because it narrates a tragic 
experience that is all too common in actual 



AMY LOWELL 251 

life ; because its tragedy is enhanced by dramatic 
contrasts, the splendour of the bright, breezy, 
sunlit garden contrasting with the road of 
ashen spiritual desolation the soul must take; 
the splendour of the gorgeous stiff brocade and 
the futility of the blank, soft, imprisoned flesh; 
the obstreperous heart, beating in joyous har- 
mony with the rhythm of the swaying flowers, 
changed by one written word into a desert of 
silence. It is the sudden annihilation of purpose 
and significance in a body and mind vital with it ; 
so that as we close the poem we seem to see for 
ever moving up and down the garden path a stiff, 
brocaded gown, moving with no volition. The 
days will pass : the daffodils will change to roses, 
to asters, to snow; but the unbroken pattern of 
desolation, will change not. 

Publication is as essential to a poet as an audi- 
ence to a playwright; Keats realized this truth 
when he printed Endymion. He knew it was full 
of faults and that he could not revise it. But he 
also knew that its publication would set him free, 
and make it possible for him immediately to write 
something better. This seems to have been the 
case with Amy Lowell. Her first book, A Dome of 
Many-Coloured Glass, does not compare for a 
moment with Sword Blades and Poppy Seed. It 
seems a harsh judgment, but I find under the dome 
hardly one poem of mmsual merit, and some of 
them are positively bad. Could anything be flatter 
than the first line of the sonnet To John Keats f 



252 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

Great master! Boyish, sympathetic man! 

The second volume, Sword Blades and Poppy 
Seed, which came two years hiter, showed a re- 
markable advance, and gave its author an en- 
viable position in American literature. An ad- 
mirable preface reveals three characteristics — 
reverence for the art of poetry, determination 
not to be confined to any school, and a refresh- 
ingly honest confession of hard labour in learning 
how to make poems. As old Quarles put it in 
the plain-spoken seventeenth century, 

I see no virtues where I smell no sweat. 

The first poem, which gives its name to the vol- 
ume, is written in the lively octosyllabics made 
famous by Christmas Eve. The sharpness of her 
drawings, one of her greatest gifts, is evident in 
the opening lines: 

A drifting, April, twilight sky, 

A wind which blew the puddles dry, 

And slai)ped the river into waves 

That ran and hid among the staves 

Of an old wharf. A watery light 

Touched bleak the granite bridge, and white 

Without the slightest tinge of gold, 

The city shivered in the cold. 

Soon the traveller meets a man who takes him 
to an old room, full of the symbols of poetry — 
edged weapons, curiously and elegantly wrought, 
together with seeds of poppy. Poems may be 
divided into two classes, stimulants and seda- 
tives. 



AMY LOWELL 253 

All books are either dreams, or swords, 
You can cut, or you can drug, with words. 

Tennyson's poetry is mainly soothing, which is 
what lazy and tired people look for in any form 
of art, and are disappointed when they do not 
find it ; the poetry of Donne, Browning, Emerson 
is the sword of the spirit ; it is the opposite of an 
angpsthetic. Hence when readers first meet it, 
the effect is one of disturbance rather than re- 
pose, and they think it cannot be poetry. Yet in 
this piece of symbolism, which itself is full of 
beauty. Amy Lowell seems to say that both 
reveille and taps are wrought by music — one is 
as much the legitimate office of poetry as the 
other. But although she classifies her poems in 
this volume according to the opening pair of sym- 
bols, and although she gives twice as much space 
to poppies as to swords, her poetry is always more 
stimulating than soothing. Her poppy seeds 
won't work; there is not a soporific page in the 
whole book. 

One of the reasons why her books are so in- 
teresting is because she knows how to tell a story 
in verse. In her romances style waits on matter, 
like an attentive and thoroughly trained hand- 
maid. Both poetry and incident are sustained 
from beginning to end ; and the reader would stop 
more often to admire the flowers along the path 
if he were not so eager to know the event. In 
this particular kind of verse-composition, she has 
shown a steady development. The first real il- 



254 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

lustration of lier powers is seen in The Great Ad- 
venture of Max Brueck, in Poppy Seed, though 
why so stirring a poem is thus classified is to me 
quite mysterious ; yet when we compare this ' ' ef- 
fort" with later poems like Pickthorn Manor and 
The Cremona Violin we see an advance both in 
vigour and in technique which is so remarkable 
that she makes her earlier narrative seem almost 
immature. A poet is indeed fortunate who can 
defeat that most formidable of all rivals — her 
younger self. In The Cremona Violin we have an 
extraordinary combination of the varied abilities 
possessed by the author. It is an absorbing tale 
full of drama, incident, realism, romanticism, im- 
agism, symbolism and pure lyrical singing. There 
is everything in fact except polyphonic prose, and 
although I am afraid she loves her experiments 
in that form, they are the portion of her com- 
plete works that I could most willingly let die. 

Her sensitiveness to colours and to sounds is 
clearly betrayed all through the romantic narra- 
tive of the Cremona Violin, where the instrument 
is a symbol of the human heart. Those who, in the 
old days before the Germans began their career 
of wholesale robbery and murder, used to hear 
Mozart's operas in the little rococo Residenz- 
Theater in Munich, will enjoy reminiscently these 
stanzas. 

The Residenz-Theater sparkled and hummed 
With lights and people. Gebnitz was to sing, 
That rare soprano. All the fiddles strummed 



AMY LOWELL 255 

With tuning up; the wood-winds made a ring 
Of reedy bubbling noises, and the sting 
Of sharp, red brass pierced every eardrum; patting 
From muffled tympani made a dark slatting 

Across the silver shimmering of flutes; 

A bassoon grunted, and an oboe wailed; 

The 'celli pizzicato-ed like great lutes. 

And mutterings of double basses trailed 

Awaj^ to silence, while loud harp-strings hailed 

Their thin, bright colours down in such a scatter 

They lost themselves amid the general clatter. 

Frau Altgelt, in the gallery, alone, 
Felt lifted up into another world. 
Before her eyes a thousand candles shone 
In the great chandeliers. A maze of curled 
And powdered periwigs past her eyes swirled. 
She smelt the smoke of candles guttering. 
And caught the scent of jewelled fans fluttering. 

Her most ambitious attempt in polyphonic prose 
is Guns as Keys: and the Great Gate Swings, 
whereof the title is like a trumpet fanfare. The 
thing itself is a combination of a moving picture 
and a calliope. Written with immense gusto, full 
of comedy and tragedy, it certainly is not lacking 
in vitality; but judged as poetry, I regard it as 
inferior to her verse romances and lyrics. 

Rhythmical prose is as old as the Old Testa- 
ment; the best modem rh5i;hmical prose that I 
have seen is found in the earlier plays of Maurice 
Maeterlinck, written a quarter of a century ago. 
It is unnecessary to enquire whether those dramas 
are poetry or not ; for although nearly all his work 
is in the printed form of prose, the author is 



256 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

almost invariably spoken of as ' ' the poet Maeter- 
linck.'^ 

The versatility of Amy Lowell is so notable 
that it would be vain to predict the nature of her 
future production, or to attempt to set a limit to 
her range. In her latest and best book, Men, 
Women, and Ghosts, besides the two admirable 
long narratives, we have poems of patriotism, out- 
door lyrics, town eclogues, pictures of still life, 
tragic pastorals in the manner of Susan Glaspell, 
and one delightful revenant, Nightmare, which 
takes us back to Dickens, for it is a verse com- 
ment on a picture by George Cruikshank. Her 
robust vitality is veined with humour ; she watches 
a roof-shingler with active delight, discovering 
poetry in cheerful manual toil. One day life 
seems to her depressing; another day, beautiful; 
another, inspiring; another, downright funny. 

In spite of her assured position in contemporary 
literature, one feels that her career has not 
reached its zenith. 

Some twelve years ago, I was engaged in earn- 
est conversation with James Whitcomb Riley con- 
cerning the outlook for American poetry. The 
chronic optimist for once was filled with woe. 
* ' There is not a single person among the younger 
writers," said he, ''who shows any promise of 
greatness, except" — and then his face recovered 
its habitual cheerfulness — ''Anna Hempstead 
Branch. She is a poet. ' ' 



ANNA BRANCH 257 

In justification of his gloom, it should be re- 
membered that the present advance in American 
poetry began some time after he uttered these 
words ; and although he was a true poet and wrote 
poems that will live for many years to come, he 
was, in everything that had to do with the art of 
poetry, the most conservative man I ever knew. 

Anna Branch was bom at Hempstead House, 
New London, Connecticut, and was graduated 
from Smith College in 1897. In 1898 she won a 
first prize for the best poem awarded by the Cen- 
tury Magazine in a competition open to college 
graduates. Since then she has published three 
volumes of verse, The Heart of the Road, 1901, 
The Shoes That Danced, 1905, Rose of the Wind, 
1910. I fear that her ambition to be a dramatist 
may have prevented her from writing lyrical 
poetry (her real gift) during these last eight 
years. If it is true, 'tis pity; for a good poem 
is a better thing than a successful play and will 
live longer. 

Like many poets who cannot write plays, she is 
surcharged with dramatic energy. But, to use a 
familiar phrase, it is action in character rather 
than character in action which marks her work 
most impressively, and the latter is the essential 
element for the footlights. Shakespeare, Ros- 
tand, and Barrie have both, and are naturally 
therefore great dramatists. Two of the most 
dramatic of Miss Branch's poems are Lazarus 
and Ora Pro Nobis. These are fruitful subjects 



258 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

for poetry, the man who came back from the grave 
and the passionate woman buried alive. In the 
short piece Lazarus, cast into the form of dialogue, 
Lazarus answers the question put to him by Ten- 
nyson in In Mcmoriam. 

Whore wort tlion, brother, those four days? 

Various members of the group, astounded at his 
resurrection, try in vain to have their curiosity 
satisfied. What do the dead do? Are they 
happy? Has }nif hahif grownf AVhat overpower- 
ing motive brought you back from peace to live 
once more in sorrow? 

This last question Lazarus answers in a posi- 
tive but unexpected way. 

A great desire led me out alone 
From those assured abodes of perfect bliss. . . . 
And by the way I went came seeking;: earth, 
Seeing before my eyes one only thing — 

The Crowd 
What was it, Lajzarus? Let us share that thing! 
What was it, brother, thou didst see? 
Lazarus 

A cross. 

Another dynamic poem, glowing with passion, is 
Ora Pro Nobis. It is difficult to select passages 
from it, for it is sustained in power and beauty 
from the first line to the last; yet some idea of its 
form and colour may be obtained by citation. A 
little girl was put into a convent with only two 
ways of passing the time; stitching and praying. 
She has never seen her face — she never will see it. 



ANNA BRANCH 259 

for no mirror is permitted ; but she sees one day 
the reflection of its beauty in the hungry eyes of a 
priest. 

Long years I dwelt in that dark hall, 
There Was no mirror on the wall, 
I never saw my face at all, 
(Hail Mary.) 
In a great peace they kept me there, 
A straight white robe they had me wear. 
And the white bands about my hair. 
I did not know that I was fair. 

(Hail Mary.) . . . 
The sweet chill fragrance of the snow. 
More fine than lilies all aglow 
Breathed around — he saw me so, 
In garments spun of fire and snow. 

(Holy Mother, pray for us.) 
His hands were on my face and hair. 
His high, stem eyes that would forswear 
All earthly beauty, saw me there. 
Oh, then I knew that I was fair! 

(Mary, intercede for us.) ... 
Then I raised up to God my prayer, 
I swept its strong and circling air, 
Betwixt me and the great despair. 

(Sweet Mary, pray for us.) 
But when before the sacred shrine 
I knelt to kiss the cross benign, 
Mary, I thought his lips touched mine. 

(Ave Maria, Ora Pro Nobis.) 

Although some of her poems have an intensity al- 
most terrible, Anna Branch has written house- 
hold lyrics as beautiful in their uncrowded sim- 
plicity as an eighteenth century room. The 
Songs for My Mother, celebrating her clothes, her 
hands, her words, her stories breathe the un- 



260 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETEY 

rivalled perfume of tender memories. And if 
Lazarus is a sword, two of her most original pieces 
are poppy-seeds, To Nature and 

THE SILENCE OF THE POETS 

I better like that shadowed side of things 

In which the Poets wrote not; when they went 

Unto the fullness of their great content 

Like moths into the grass with folded wings. 

The silence of the Poets with it brings 

The other side of moons, and it is spent 

In love, in sorrow, or in wonderment. 

After the silence, maybe a bird sings. 

I have heard call, as Summer calls the swallow, 

A leisure, bidding unto ways serene 

To be a child of winds and the blue hazes. 

"Dream" — quoth the Dreamer — and 'tis sweet to follow ! 

So Keats watched stars rise from his meadows green, 

And Chaucer spent his hours among the daisies. 

This productive leisure has borne much fruit in 
the poetry of Anna Branch; her work often has 
the quiet beauty rising from tranquil meditation. 
She is an orthodox poet. She uses the old ma- 
terial — God, Nature, Man — and writes songs with 
the familiar notation. She has attracted atten- 
tion not by the strangeness of her ideas, or by the 
audacity of her method, but simply by the sin- 
cerity of her thought and the superior quality of 
her singing voice. There is no difficulty in dis- 
tinguishing her among the members of the choir, 
and she does not have to make a discord to be 
noticed. 



EDGAR LEE MASTERS 261 

There are almost as many kinds of poets as 
there are varieties of human beings; it is a far 
cry from Anna Branch to Edgar Lee Masters. 
I do not know whether either reads the other; it 
may be a mutual admiration exists ; it may be that 
each would be ashamed to have written the other 's 
books ; even if that were true, there is no reason 
why an American critic — with proper reservations 
— should not be proud of both. For if there is 
one thing certain about the advance of ^poetry in 
America, it is that the advance is a general one 
along the whole line of composition from free 
verse and polyphonic prose on the extreme left to 
sonnets and quatrains on the extreme right. 

Edgar Lee Masters was born in Kansas, on the 
twenty-third of August, 1869. The family moved 
to Illinois the next year. His father was a law- 
yer, and the child had access to plenty of good 
books, which he read eagerly. In spite of his 
preoccupation with the seamy side of human na- 
ture, he is in reality a bookish poet, and most of 
his work — though not the best part of it-^smells 
of the lamp. Fortunately for him he was brought 
up on the Bible, for even those who attack the 
Old Book are glad to be able to tip their weapons 
with biblical language. Ibsen used to say that 
his chief reading, even in mature years, was al- 
ways the Bible; ''it is so strong and mighty." 

Everything connected with books and literary 
work fascinated the youth; like so many boys of 



262 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

his time — before wireless came in — ho had his own 
printing-press. I wonder if it was a *' self- 
inker"? In my day, the boy who o^^^lod a ^'self- 
inker" and "clnb-skates" was roi^'ardod with envj. 
The three generations in this family illustrate the 
play Milestones; the grandfather vainly tried to 
make his son a farmer, but the boy elected to be 
a lawyer and carried his point; he in turn was 
determined to twist his son into a lawyer, whereas 
Edgar wanted to be a writer. As this latter pro- 
fession is usually without emolument, he was 
forced into the law, where the virile energy of his 
mind rewarded his zestless efforts with success. 
However, at the age of twenty-one, he persuaded 
his father to allow him to study at Knox College 
for a year, a highly important period in his de- 
velopment; for he resumed the interrupted study 
of Latin, and began Greek. Greek is the chief 
inspiration of his life, and of his art. He has 
read Homer every year since his college days. 

Later he went to Chicago, and stayed there, 
busying himself not only at his profession, but 
taking part in political activities, as fii\j one might 
guess from reading his poems. The primal im- 
pulse to write was not frustrated ; he has written 
verse all his life ; and in fact has published a con- 
siderable number of volumes during the last 
twenty years, no one of which attracted any at- 
tention until 1915, when Spoon River Anthology 
made everybody sit up. 

Mr. Masters was nearly fifty when this book ap- 



EDGAR LEE MASTERS 263 

peared; it is a long time to wait for a reputa- 
tion,, especially if one is constantly trying to ob- 
tain a hearing. It speaks powerfully for his cour- 
age, tenacity, and faith that he should never have 
quit — and his triumph will encourage some good 
and many bad writers to persevere. Emboldened 
by the immense success of Spoon River, he pro- 
duced three more volumes in rapid succession; 
Songs and Satires in 1916, The Great Valley in the 
same year, and Toward the Gidf in 1918. It is 
fortunate for him that these works followed rather 
than preceded the Anthology; for although they 
are not destitute of merit, they seem to require a 
famous name to ensure a sale. It is the brand, 
and not the goods, that gives a circulation to these 
books. 

The pieces in Spoon River Anthology originally 
appeared in William Marion Reedy 's periodical, 
called Reedy 's Mirror, the first one being printed 
in the issue for 29 May, 1914, and the others fol- 
lowing week after week. A grateful acknowledg- 
ment is made in a brief preface to the volume, and 
the full debt is handsomely paid in a dedicatory 
preface of Toward the Gulf, which every one in- 
terested in Mr. Masters — and who is not? — should 
read with attention. The poet manfully lets us 
know that it was Mr. Reedy who, in 1909, made 
him read the Greek Anthology, without which 
Spoon River would never have been written. 
Criticism is forestalled in this preface, because 
Mr. Masters takes a prose translation of Meleager, 



264 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETKY 

"with its sad revealment and touch of irony" — 
exactly the characteristics of Spoon River — and 
turns it into free verse: 

The holy night ivnd tliou, 

Lamp, 

We took as witness of our vows; 

And before thee we swore, 

He that [he] woiiki love me always 

And I that I would never leave him. 

We swore, 

And thou wert witness of our double promise. 

But now he says that our vows were written on the running 

waters. 
And thou, Lamp, 
Thou seest him in the arms of another. 

What Mr. Masters did was to transfer the method 
and the tone of the Greek Anthology to a twentieth 
century village in the Middle West, or as he ex- 
presses it, to make "an epic rendition of modern 
life." 

Even if it were desirable, how impossible it is 
to escape from the past! we are ruled by the dead 
as truly in the fields of art as in the domain of 
morality and religion. The most radical innova- 
tor can no more break loose from tradition than a 
tree can run away from its roots. John Mase- 
field takes us back to Chaucer ; Vachel Lindsay is 
a reincarnation of the ancient minstrels; Edgar 
Lee Masters owes both the idea and the form of 
his masterpiece to Greek literature. Art is as 
continuous as life. 

This does not mean that he lacks originality. It 



EDGAR LEE MASTERS 265 

was a daring stroke — body- snatching in lOl-t. To 
prodnce a work like Spoon liivcr Anthology 
required years of accumulated experience; a 
mordant power of analysis; a gift of shrewd 
speech, a command of hard words that will cut 
like a diamond; a mental vigour analogous to, 
though naturally not so powerful, as that dis- 
played by Browning in The Ring and the Book. 
It is still a debatable proposition whether or not 
this is high-class poetry; but it is mixed with 
brains. Imagine the range of knowledge and 
power necessary to create two hundred and forty- 
six distinct characters, with a revealing epitaph 
for each one! The miracle of personal identity 
has always seemed to me perhaps the greatest 
miracle among all those that make up the uni- 
verse; but to take up a pen and clearly display 
the marks that separate one individual from the 
mass, and repeat the feat nearly two hundred and 
fifty times, this needs creative genius. 

The task that confronted Mr. Masters was this : 
to exhibit a long list of individuals with sufficient 
basal similarity for each one to be unmistakably 
human, and then to show the particular traits that 
distinguish each man and woman from the others, 
giving each a right to a name instead of a num- 
ber. For instinctively we are all alike ; it is the 
way in which we manage our instincts that shows 
divergence; just as men and women are alike in 
possessing fingers, whereas no two finger-prints 
are ever the same. 



266 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

Mr. Masters has the double power of irony and 
sarcasm. The irony of life gives the tone to the 
whole book ; particular phases of life like religious 
hypocrisy and political trinnning are treated with 
vitriolic scorn. The following selection exhibits 
as well as any the author's poetic power of making 
pictures, together with the grinning irony of fate. 

BERT KESSLER 

I winged my bird, 

Though ho flew toward the setting sun; 

But just as the shot rang out, he soared 

Up and up through the splinters of gokien light, 

Till he turned right over, feathers ruffled, 

With some of the down of him floating near. 

And fell like a j)lummet into the grass. 

I tramped about, parting the tangles, 

Till I saw a splash of blood on a stump, 

And the quail lying close to the rotten roots. 

I reached my hand, but saw no brier. 

But something pricked and stunned and numbed it. 

And then, in a second, I spied the rattler — 

The shutters wide in his yellow eyes. 

The head of him arched, sunk back in the rings of him, 

A circle of filth, the color of ashes. 

Or oak leaves bleached under layers of leaves, 

I stood like a stone as he shrank and uncoiled 

And started to crawl beneath the stump, 

When I fell limp in the grass. 

This poem, with its unforgettable pictures and its 
terrible climax, can stand easily enough by itself ; 
it needs no interpretation ; and yet, if w^e like, the 
rattler may be taken as a symbol — a s}Tnbol of 
the generation of vipers of which the population 
of Spoon River is mainly composed. 



EDGAR LEE MASTERS 267 

In the Anthology, the driving motive is an al- 
most perverted passion for truth. Conventional 
epitaphs are marked by two characteristics; ar- 
tistically, when in verse, they are the worst speci- 
mens of poetry known to man; even good poets 
seldom write good epitaphs, and among all the 
sins against art perpetrated by the uninspired, the 
most flagrant are found here; to a bad poet, for 
some reason or other, the temptation to write 
them is irresistible. In many small communities, 
one has to get up very early in the morning to 
die before the village laureate has his poem pre- 
pared. This depth of artistic infamy is equalled 
only by the low percentage of truth; so if one 
wishes to discover literary illustrations where 
falsehood is united with crudity, epitaphs would 
be the field of literature toward which one would 
instinctively turn. 

Like Jonathan Swift, Mr. Masters is consumed 
with hatred for insincerity in art and insincerity 
in life; in the laudable desire to force the truth 
upon his readers, he emphasizes the ugly, the 
brutal, the treacherous elements which exist, not 
only in Spoon River, but in every man born of 
woman. The result, viewed calmly, is that we 
have an impressive collection of vices — which, al- 
though inspired by a sincerity fundamentally 
noble-— is as far from being a truthful picture of 
the village as a conventional panegyric. The ordi- 
nary photographer, who irons out the warts and 
the wrinkles, gives his subject a smooth lying 



268 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

mask instead of a face; but a photograph that 
should make the defects more prominent than the 
eyes, nose, and mouth would not be a portrait. 

A large part of a lawyer's business is analysis; 
and the analytical power displayed by Mr. Mas- 
ters is nothing less than remarkable. Each char- 
acter in Spoon River is subjected to a remorseless 
autopsy, in which the various vicious elements ex- 
isting in all men and women are laid bare. But 
the business of the artist, after preparatory and 
necessary analysing, is really synthesis. It is to 
make a complete artistic whole ; to produce some 
form of art. 

This is why the Elegy Written in a Country 
Churehyard, by Thomas Gray, is so superior as 
a poem to Si)oon River Antholociy. The rich 
were buried in the church; the poor in the j^ard; 
we are therefore given the short and simple an- 
nals of the poor. The curious thing is that these 
humble, rustic, unlettered folk were presented to 
the world sympathetically by a man who was al- 
most an intellectual snob. One of the most exact 
scholars of his day, one of the most fastidious of 
mortals, one of the shyest men that ever lived, a 
born mental aristocrat, his literary genius en- 
abled him to write an immortal masterpiece, not 
about the Cambridge hierarchy, but about illiterate 
tillers of the soil. The FAeyy is the genius of 
synthesis; without submitting each man in the 
ground to a ruthless cross-examination. Gray man- 
aged to express in impeccable beauty of language 



EDGAR LEE MASTERS 2(5!) 

the common thoiig-lits and feelings that have ever 
animated the hnnian sonl. His poem will live as 
loui;- as any book, because it is rundamentally 
1 rue. 

I therefore regard Spoon River Anthology not 
as a brilliant revelation ol* human nature, but as 
a masterpiece of cynicism. It took a genius to 
write the fourth book of Gulliver's Travels; but 
iil'ter all, Yahoos are not men and women, and 
horses are not superior to humanity. The reason 
why, in reading the Antholotjii, we ext)erience the 
constmit pricking of recognition is because we 
recognize the baser elements in these characters, 
not only in other persons, but in ourselves. The 
reason why the Yahoos (ill us with such terror is 
because they are true incanuitions of our worst 
instincts. There, but for the grace of God, go 
you and I. 

The chief element in the creative work of Mr. 
Masters being the power of analysis, he is at his 
best in this collection of short i)oems. When he 
attempts a longer flight, his limitations api)ear. 
It is distinctly unfortunate that The Spooniad and 
The Epilogue were added at the end of this won- 
derful Rogues' Gallery. They are witless. 

Even the greatest cynic has his ideal side. It 
is the figure of Abraham Ijincoln that arouses all 
llu> romanticism of our poet, as was the case with 
Walt Wliiiman, who, to be sure, was no cynic at 
all. The short poem Anne Rutledge is one of the 
few that strictly conform to the etymological 



270 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

meaning of the title of the book; for *' Anthology" 
is a union of two Greek words, signifying a col- 
lection of flowers. 

Like Browning, Mr. Masters forsook the drama 
for the dramatic monologue. His best work is 
in this form, where he takes one person and per- 
mits him to reveal himself either in a soliloquy 
or in a conversation. And it must be confessed 
that the monologues spoken by contemporaries 
or by those Americans who talk from the grave- 
yard of Spoon River, are superior to the attempts 
at interpreting great historical figures. The 
Shakespeare poem Tomorrow Is My Birthday is 
not only one of the worst effusions of Mr. Masters' 
pen, it is almost sacrilege. Good friend, for 
Jesus' sake, forbear! 

Outside of the monologues and the epitaphs, 
the work of Mr. Masters is mainly unimpressive. 
Yet I admire his ambition to write on various 
subjects and in various metres. Occasionally he 
produces a short story in verse, characterized by 
dramatic power and by austere beauty of style. 
The poem Boyhood Friends, recently published in 
the Yale Revieiv, and quite properly included by 
Mr. Braithwaite in his interesting and valuable 
Anthology for 1917, shows such a command of 
blank verse that I look for still finer things in 
the future. With all his twisted cynicism and 
perversities of expression, Mr. Masters is a true 
poet. He has achieved one sinister masterpiece, 
which has cleansed his bosom of much perilous 



LOUIS UNTERMEYER 271 

stuff. Tomorrow to fresh woods and pastures 



Louis Untermeyer was born at New York, on 
the first of October, 1885. lie produced a volume 
of original poems at the age of twenty-five. This 
was followed by three other books, and in addi- 
tion, he has written many verse-translations, a 
long list of prose articles in literary criticism, 
whilst not neglecting his professional work as a 
designer of jewelry. There is no doubt that this 
form of art has been a fascinating occupation and 
an inspiration to poetry. He not only makes 
sermons in stones, but can manufacture jewels 
five words long. Should any one be dissatisfied 
with his designs for the jewel-factory, he can 
''point with pride" to his books, saying, Haec 
sunt mea ornamenta. 

Somewhere or other I read a review of the lat- 
est volume of verse from Mr. Untermeyer, and 
the critic began as follows : ' ' One is grateful to 
Mr. Untermeyer for doing what almost none of 
his contemporaries on this side of the water thinks 
of doing." This sentence stimulated my curios- 
ity, for I wondered what particularly distinguish- 
ing feature of his work I had failed to see. ''For 
about the last thing that poets and theorizers 
about poetry in these days think of is beauty. In 
discussion and practice beauty is almost entirely 
left out of consideration. Frequently they do not 
concern themselves with it at all." 



272 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

Such criticism as that starts with a precon- 
ceived delinitioii of beauty, misses every form of 
beauty outside of the definition, and gives to Mr. 
Untermeyer credit for originality in precisely 
that feature of his work where he most resembles 
contemporary and past poets. I believe that 
beauty is now as it always has been the main aim 
of the majority of American poets; but instead of 
legendary beauty, instead of traditional beauty, 
they wish us to see beauty in modern life. For 
example, it is interesting to observe how com- 
pletely public opinion has changed concerning the 
New York sky-scrapers. I can remember when 
they were regarded as monstrosities of commer- 
cialism, an offence to the eye and a toiTuent to the 
resthetic sense. But I recall through my reading 
of history that mountains were also once re- 
garded as hideous deformities — they were hook- 
shouldered giants, impressive in size — anything 
you like except beautiful. All the mountain had 
to do was to go on staying there, confident in its 
supreme excellence, kno^^^ing that some day it 
would be appreciated : 

Somebody remarks : 
Morello's outline there is wrongly traced, 
His hue mistaken ; what of that f or else, 
Rightly traced and well ordered; what of that? 
Speak as they please, what does the mountain care? 

We know better today; we know that the New 
York sky-scrapers are beautiful ; just as we know 



LOUIS UNTERMEYER 273 

that New York harbour in the night has some- 
thing of the gk)ry of fairyland. 

No, it will not do to say that Mr. Untermeyer 
is original in his preoccupation with beauty; it 
would be almost as true to say that the chief 
feature in his work is the English language. 

What is notable in him is the combination of 
three things ; an immense love of life, a romantic 
interpretation of material things, and a remark- 
able talent for parody and burlesque. 

Sex and Death — the obsessions of so many 
young poets — are not particularly conspicuous in 
the poetry of this healthy, happy young man. 
He writes about swimming, climbing the palisades, 
willow-trees, children jil^yi^ff iii the street. 
Familiar objects become mysterious and thought- 
provoking in the light of his fancy. His imagina- 
tion provides him with no end of fun ; he needs no 
melancholy solitary pilgrimage in the gloaming 
to give him a pair of rimes; a country farm or 
a city slum is quite enough. I like his affection- 
ate salutation to the willow; I like hi& interpreta- 
tion of a side street. His greatest tour de force 
is his poem, Still Life. Of all painted pictures, 
with the one exception of dead fish, the conven- 
tional overturned basket of fruit is to me the most 
barren of meaning, the least inspiring, in sug- 
gestion a blank. Yet somehow Mr. Untermeyer, 
looking at a bowl of fruit, sees something I cer- 
tainly never saw and do not ever expect to see 



274 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

except on this printed page, something that a bowl 
of fruit has for me in the same proportion as the 
stump of a cigar — something dynamic. 

I do not understand why so many Americans 
plaster the walls of their dining-rooms "s\ath pic- 
tures of overset fruit-baskets and of dead fish, 
with their ugly mouths open; but in "still life" 
this paradoxical poet sees something full of 
demoniacal energy. Death, where is thy sting! 

Never have I beheld such fierce contempt, 
Nor heard a voice so full of vehement life 
As this that shouted from a bowl of fruit, 
High-pitched, malignant, lusty and perverse — 
Brutal with a triumphant restlessness. 

But the fruit in the basket is dead. The energy, 
the fierce vehemence and the lusty shout are not 
in the bowl, but in the soul. Subjectivity can no 
further go. 

It is rather curious, that when our poet can be- 
hold such passion in a Avillow-tree or in a mess of 
plucked fruit, he should be so blind to it in the 
heart of an old maid; though to be honest, the 
heroine of his poem is meant for an individual 
rather than a type. If there is one object on earth 
that a healthy young man cannot understand, it 
is an old maid. Who can forget that terrible out- 
burst of the aunt in Une Vief ''Nobody ever 
cared to ask if my feet were wet!" Mr. Unter- 
meyer mil live and learn. He is not contemptu- 
ous; he is full of pity, but it is the pity of ig- 
norance. 



LOUIS UNTERMEYER 275 

Great joys or sorrows never came 

To set her placid soul astir; 
Youth's leaping torch, Love's sudden flame 

Were never even lit for her. 

Don't you believe it, Mr. Untermeyerl 

Even in his '* serious" volumes of verse, there 
is much satire and saline humour ; so that his de- 
lightful book of parodies, called and Other 

Poets is as spontaneous a product of his Muse as 
his utterances ex cathedra. The twenty-seven 
poems, called The Banquet of the Bards, with 
which the book begins, are excellent fooling and 
genuine criticism. He wrote these things for his 
own amusement, one reason why they amuse us. 
A roll-call of twenty-seven contemporary poets, 
where each one comes forward and ''speaks his 
piece," is decidedly worth having. John Mase- 
field "tells the true story of Tom, Tom, the Piper's 
Son"; William Butler Yeats ''gives a Keltic ver- 
sion of Three Wise Men in Gotham"; Robert 
Frost "relates the Death of the Tired Man," and 
so on. I had rather possess this volume than 
any other by the author; it is almost worthy to 
rank with the immortal Fly Leaves. Further- 
more, in his serious work Mr. Untermeyer has 
only begun to fight. 

And while we are considering poems "in 
lighter vein," let us not forget the three famous 
initials signed to a column in the Chicago Tribune, 
Don Marquis of the Evening Sun, who can be 
either grave or gay but cannot be ungraceful, and 



276 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

the universally beloved Captain Franklin P. 
Adams, whose Conning Tower increased the cir- 
culation of the New York Tribune and the blood 
of its readers. Brightest and best of the sons of 
the Colyunmists, his classic Muse made the Eve- 
ning Mail an evening blessing, sending the subur- 
banites home to their wives "always in good 
humour"; then, like Jupiter and Venus, he 
changed from evening star to morning star, and 
gave many thousands a new zest for the day's 
work. Skilful indeed was his appropriation of 
the methods of Tom Sawyer ; as Tom got his fence 
whitewashed by arousing an eager competition 
among the boys to do his work for him, each 
toiler firmly persuaded that he was the recipient 
rather than the bestower of a favour, so F. P. A. 
incited hundreds of well-paid literary artists to 
compete with one another for the privilege of 
writing his column without money and without 
price. 

His two books of verse, By and Large and 
Weights and Measures, have fairly earned a place 
in contemporary American literature ; and the in- 
fluence of his column toward precision and dignity 
in the use of the English language has made him 
one of the best teachers of English composition in 
the country. 



CHAPTER X 

SARA TEASDAL.E, ALAN SEEGER, AND OTHERS 

Sara Teasdale — her poems of love — her youth — her finished 
art — Fannie Stearns Davis — her thoughtful verse — Theodosia 
Garrison — her war poem — war poetry of Mary Carolyn Davies 
— Harriet Monroe — her services — her original work — Alice 
Corbin — her philosophy — Sarah Cleghom — poet of the coun- 
try village — Jessie B. Rittenhouse — critic and poet — Margaret 
Widdemer — poet of the factories — Carl Sandburg — poet of 
Chicago — his career — his defects — J. C. Underwood — poet of 
city noises — T. S. Ehot — J. G. Neihardt — love poems — C. W. 
Stork — Contemporary Verse — M. L. Fisher — The Sonnet — S. 
Middleton — J. P. Bishop — W. A. Bradley — nature poems — W. 
Grimth— City Pastorals— John Erskine — W. E. Leonard— W. 
T. Whitsett — Helen Hay Whitney — Corinne Roosevelt Robin- 
son — M. Nicholson — his left hand — Witter Bynner — a country 
poet — H. Hagedorn — Percy Mackaye — his theories — his possi- 
bilities — J. G. Fletcher — monotony of free verse — Conrad 
Aiken — his gift of melody — W. A. Percy — the best American 
poem of 1917 — Alan Seeger — an Elizabethan — an inspired 
poet. 

Sara Teasdale (Mrs. Filsinger) was born at St. 
Louis (pronounced Lewis), on the eighth of 
August, 1884. Her first book appeared when she 
was twenty-three, and made an impression. In 
1911 she published Helen of Troy, and Other 
Poems; in 1915 a volume of original lyrics 
called Rivers to the Sea; some of these were re- 
printed, together with new material, in Love 

277 



278 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETEY 

Poems (1917), which also contained Songs out of 
Sorrow — verses that won the prize offered by the 
Poetry Society of America for the best unpub- 
lished work read at the meetings in 1916 ; and in 
1918 she received the Columbia University Poetry 
Prize of five hundred dollars, for the best book 
produced by an American in 1917. 

In spite of her youth and the slender amount 
of her production, Sara Teasdale has won her 
way to the front rank of living American poets. 
She is among the happy few who not only know 
what they wish to accomplish, but who succeed 
in the attempt. How many manuscripts she 
burns, I know not; but the comparatively small 
number of pages that reach the world are nearly 
fleckless. Her career is beginning, but her work 
shows a combination of strength and grace that 
many a master might envy. It would be an in- 
sult to call her poems ''promising," for most of 
them exhibit a consummate control of the art of 
lyrical expression. Give her more years, more 
experience, wider range, richer content, her arch- 
itecture may become as massive as it is fine. She 
thoroughly understands the manipulation of the 
material of poetry. It would be difficult to sug- 
gest any improvement upon 

TWILIGHT 

The stately tragedy of dusk 

Drew to its perfect close, 
The virginal white evening star 

Sank, and the red moon rose. 



SARA TEASDALE 279 

Although she gives us many beautiful pictures 
of nature, she is primarily a poet of love. White- 
hot passion without a trace of anything common 
or unclean; absolute surrender; whole-hearted de- 
votion expressed in pure singing. Nothing is 
finer than this — to realize that the primal impulse 
is as strong as in the breast of a cave-woman, yet 
illumined by clear, high intelligence, and pouring 
out its feeling in a voice of gracious charm. 

PITY 

They never saw my lover's face, 
They only know our love was brief, 

Wearing awhile a windy grace 
And passing like an autumn leaf. 

They wonder why I do not weep, 

They think it strange that I can sing, 

They say, "Her love was scarcely deep 
Since it has left so slight a sting." 

They never saw my love nor knew 
That in my heart's most secret place 

I pity them as angels do 

Men who have never seen God's face. 

A PRAYER 

Until I lose my soul and lie 

Blind to the beauty of the earth, 
Deaf tho' a lyric wind goes by, 

Dumb in a storm of mirth; 

Until my heart is quenched at length 

And I have left the land of men, 
Oh, let me love with all my strength 

Careless if I am loved again. 



280 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

If the two pieces just cited are not poetry, then 
I have no idea what poetry may be. 

Another young woman poet is Fannie Stearns 
Davis (Mrs. G-ifford). The quality of her mind 
as displayed in her two books indicates possibili- 
ties of high development. She was born at Cleve- 
land, on the sixth of March, 1884, is a graduate 
of Smith College, was a teacher in Wisconsin, and 
has made many contributions to various maga- 
zines. Her first book of poems. Myself and I, ap- 
peared in 1913; two years later came the volume 
called Crach o' Dawn. She is not much given to 
metrical adventure, although one of her most or- 
iginal poems, As I Drank Tea Today, has an ir- 
regular rime-scheme. For the most part, she 
follows both in subject and style the poetic tradi- 
tion. She has the gift of song — not indeed in the 
superlative degree — but nevertheless unmistak- 
able; and she has a full mind. She is neither 
optimist nor pessimist; I should call her a sym- 
pathetic observer. The following poem sums up 
fairly well her accumulated wisdom: 

I have looked into all men's hearts. 
Like houses at night unshuttered they stand, 
And I walk in the street, in the dark, and on either hand 

There are hollow houses, men's hearts. 

They think that the curtains are drawn, 
Yet I see their shadows suddenly kneel 
To pray, or laughing and reckless as drunkards reel 

Into dead sleep till dawn. 



FANNIE STEARNS DAVIS 281 

And I see an immortal child 
With its quaint high dreams and wondering eyes 
Sleeping beneath the hard worn body that lies 

Like a mummy-case defiled. 

And I hear an immortal cry 
Of splendour strain through the sodden words, 
Like a flight of brave-winged heaven-desirous birds 

From a swamp where poisons lie. 

— I have looked into all men's hearts. 
Oh, secret terrible houses of beauty and pain! 
And I cannot be gay, but I cannot be bitter again, 

Since I looked into all men's hearts. 

There is one commandment that all poets un- 
der the first class, and perhaps some of those 
favoured ones, frequently break: the tenth. One 
cannot blame them, for they know what poetry is, 
and they love it. They not only know what it is, 
but their own limited experience has taught them 
what rapture it must be to write lines of flawless 
beauty. This unconquerable covetousness is ad- 
mirably and artistically expressed in Fannie 
Davis's poem, After Copying Goodly Poetry. It 
is an honest confession ; but its author is fortunate 
in being able to express vain desire so beautifully 
that many lesser poets will covet her covetousness. 

Theodosia Garrison was born at Newark, New 
Jersey, on the twenty-sixth of November, 1874. 
She has published three volumes of verse, of which 
perhaps the best known is The Joy of Life (1909). 
At present she is engaged in war work, where her 
high faith, serene womanliness, and overflowing 



282 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

humour ought to make her, in the finest sense of 
the word, efficient. Her short poem on the war 
is a good answer to detractors of America. 

APRIL 2nd 

We have been patient — and they named us weak; 
We have been silent — and they judged us meek, 
Now, in the much-abused, high name of God 
We speak. 

Oh, not with faltering or uncertain tone — 
With chosen words we make our meaning known, 
That like a great wind from the West shall shake 
The double throne. 

Our colours flame upon the topmost mast, — 
We lift the glove so arrogantly cast, 
And in the much-abused, high name of God 
We speak at last. 

Another war alchemist is Mary Carolyn Davies, 
poet of Oregon and Brooklyn. She knows both 
coasts of America, she understands the American 
spirit of idealism and self-sacrifice, and her verses 
have a direct hitting power that will break open 
the hardest heart. In her book. The Brums in 
Our Street (1918), the glory and the tragedy of 
the world-struggle are expressed in terms of in- 
dividual feeling. There is decided inequality in 
this volume, but the best pieces are so carefully 
distributed among the commonplace that one must 
read the whole work. 

Harriet Monroe was born in Chicago and went 
to school in Georgetown, D. C. In connection with 



HARRIET MONROE 283 

the World's Exposition in Chicago she received 
the honour of being formally invited to write a 
poem for the dedication. Accordingly at the cere- 
mony commemorating the four hundredth anni- 
versary of the discovery of America, 21 October, 
1892, her Columhian Ode was given with music. 

Harriet Monroe's chief services to the art of 
poetry are seen not so much in her creative work 
as in her founding and editing of the magazine 
called Poetry, of which I made mention in my re- 
marks on Vachel Lindsay. In addition to this 
monthly stimulation — which has proved of dis- 
tinct value both in awakening general interest and 
in giving new poets an opportunity to be heard, 
Miss Monroe, with the assistance of Alice Corbin 
Henderson, published in 1917 an anthology of 
the new varieties of verse. Certain poets are 
someAvhat arbitrarily excluded, although their 
names are mentioned in the Preface; the title of 
the book is The New Poetry; the authors are 
fairly represented, and with some sins of com- 
mission the selections from each are made with 
critical judgment. Every student of contempo- 
rary verse should own a copy of this work. 

In 1914 Miss Monroe produced a volume of her 
original poems, called You and I. There are over 
•two hundred pages, and those who look in them 
for something strange and startling will be dis- 
appointed. Knowing the author's sympathy with 
radicalism in art, and with all modern extremists, 
the form of these verses is sui*prisingly consen'^a- 



284 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

tive. To be sure, the first one, The Hotel, is in a 
kind of polyphonic prose, but it is not at all a 
fair sample of the contents. Now whether the 
reading of many manuscripts has dulled Miss 
Monroe's creative power or not, who can say? 
The fact is that most of these poems are in no 
way remarkable either for feeling or expression, 
and many of them fail to rise above the level of 
the commonplace. There is happily no straining 
for effect; but unhappily in most instances there 
is no effect. 

Alice Corbin (Mrs. Henderson) is a native of 
Virginia and a resident of Chicago. She is co- 
editor with Miss Monroe of The New Poetry an- 
thology, wherein her own poems are represented. 
These indicate skill in the manipulation of dif- 
ferent metrical forms; and they reveal as well a 
shrewd, healthy acceptance of life as it is. This 
feeling communicates itself in a charming way to 
the reader ; it is too vigorous for acquiescence, too 
wise for blind optimism, but nearer optimism than 
pessimism. It seems perhaps in certain aspects 
to resemble the philosophy of Ralph Hodgson, 
although his command of the art of poetry is be- 
yond her range. 

Sarah Norcliffe Cleghorn was born at Norfolk, 
Virginia, on the fourth of February, 1876, but 
since childhood has lived in Vermont. She 
studied at Radcliffe College, and has written much 
verse and prose. In 1915 a number of her lyrics 
were printed between the short stories in a volume 



SARAH CLEGHORN 285 

by her friend, Dorothy Canfield, called Hillshoro 
People. In 1917 she published a book of verses, 
Portraits and Protests, where the portraits are 
better than the protests. No one has more truly 
or more sympathetically expressed the spirit of 
George Herbert's poetry than Miss Cleghorn has 
given it with a handful of words, in the lyric In 
Beynerton Church. But she is above all a coun- 
try mouse and a country muse; she knows her 
Vermont neighbours to the skin and bone, and 
brings out artistically the austere sweetness of 
their daily lives. I think I like best of all her 
work the poem 

A SAINT'S HOURS 

In the still cold before the sun, 
Her matins Her brothers and her sisters small 

She woke, and washed and dressed each one. 

And tlirough the morning hours all 
Prime Singing above her broom she stood 

And swept the house from hall to hall. 

Then out she ran with tidings good, 
Tierce Across the field and down the lane, 

To share them with the neighbourhood. 

Four miles she walked, and home again, 
Sexts To sit through half the afternoon 

And hear a feeble crone complain. 

But when she saw the frosty moon 
Nones And lakes of shadow on the hill. 

Her maiden dreams grew bright as noon. 



286 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

She threw her pitying apron frill 
Vespers Over a little trembling mouse 

When the sleek cat yawned on the sill 

In the late hours and drowsy house. 
Evensong At last, too tired, beside her bed 

She fell asleep — her prayers half said. 

Is not this one of the high functions of poetry, 
to interpret the life the poet knows best, and to 
interpret it always in terms of the eleventh and 
twelfth commandments? Observe she loves the 
sister-mother, and she loves the mouse as well as 
the cat. There is no reason why those who love 
birds should not love cats as well; is a cat the 
only animal who eats birds? It is a diverting 
spectacle, a man with his mouth full of squab, in- 
sisting that cats should bo exterminated. 

A woman who has done much for the advance 
of English poetry in America by her influence on 
public critical opinion, is Jessie B. Rittenhouse. 
She is a graduate of Genesee Wesleyan Seminaiy 
in Lima, New York, taught Latin and English in 
Illinois and in Michigan, and for five years was 
busily engaged in journalism. In 1904 she pub- 
lished a volume of criticism on contemporary 
verse, and for the last fourteen years has printed 
many essays of interpretation, dealing with the 
new poets. I dare say no one in America is more 
familiar with the English poetry of the twentieth 
century than she. She has been so occupied with 
this important and fruitful work that she has 



MARGARET WIDDEMER 287 

had little time to compose original verse ; but any- 
one who will read through her volume, The Door 
of Dreams, \f ill find it impossible not to admire 
her lyrical gift. She has not yet shown enough 
sustained power to give her a place with Anna 
Hempstead Branch or with Sara Teasdale ; but she 
has the capacity of putting much feeling into very 
few words. 

Margaret Widdemer, the daughter of a clerg}^- 
man, was bom at Doylestown, Pennsylvania, and 
was graduated from Drexel Institute Library 
School in 1909. She has written verse and prose 
from early childhood, but was not widely known 
until the appearance of her poem Factories. In 
1915 this was published in a book with other pieces, 
and a revised, enlarged edition was printed in 
1917, called by the name of the now-famous song, 
and containing in addition nearly a hundred lyrics. 
Although her soul is aflame at the omnipresence 
of injustice in the world, her work covers a wide 
range of thought and feeling. Her heart is swol- 
len with pity for the sufferings of women ; but she 
is no sentimentalist. There is an intellectual in- 
dependence, a clear-headed womanly self-reliance 
about her way of thinking and writing that is 
both refreshing and stimulating. In hope and in 
despair she speaks for the many thousands of 
women, who first found their voice in Ibsen's 
Doll's House; her poem. The Modern Woman to 
Her Lover has a cleanly honesty without any 



288 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETEY 

strained pose. And although Factories is doubt- 
less her masterpiece in its eloquent Inasmuch as 
ye did it not, she can portray a more quiet and 
more lonely tragedy as well. Her poem called 
The Two Dyings might have been named The 
Heart KnowetJi its own Bitterness. 

I can remember once, ere I was dead, 
The sorrow and the prayer and bitter cry 

When they who loved me stood around the bed, 
Watching till I should die: 

They need not so have grieved their souls for me, 
Grouped statue-like to count my failing breath — 

Only one tliought strove faintly, bitterly 
With the kind drug of Death : 

How once ujion a time, unwept, unknown, 

Unhelped by pitying sigh or murmured prayer, 

My youth died in slow agony alone 
With none to watch or care. 

Never in any period of the world 's history was 
the table of life so richly spread as in the years 
1900-1914 ; women were just beginning to realize 
that places ought to be reserved for them as well 
as for men, when the war came, and there was no 
place for any one except a place to fight the 
Black Plague of Kaiserism; now when the war 
is over, suppose the women insist? Wliat then? 
Before the French Revolution, only a few were 
invited to sit down and eat, while the majority 
were permitted to kneel and watch from a dis- 
tance. A Frenchman once remarked, * * The great 



CARL SANDBURG 289 

appear to us great because we are kneeling — let 
us rise." They rose, and out of the turmoil came 
an enormous enlargement of the dining-hall. 

Carl Sandburg sings of Chicago with husky- 
haughty lips. I like Chicago and I like poetry; 
but I do not much care for the combination as il- 
lustrated in Mr. Sandburg's volume, Chicago 
Poems. I think it has been overrated. It is pre- 
tentious rather than important. It is the raw ma- 
terial of poetry, rather than the finished product. 
Mere passion and imagination are not enough to 
make a poet, even when accompanied by indigna- 
tion. If feeling and appreciation could produce 
poetry, then we should all be poets. But it is also 
necessary to know how to write. 

Carl Sandburg was born at Galesburg, Illinois, 
on the sixth of January, 1878. He has ''worked 
his own way" through life with courage and am- 
bition, performing any kind of respectable indoor 
and outdoor toil that would keep him alive. In 
the Spanish war, he immediately enlisted, and be- 
longed to the first military company that went to 
Porto Rico. In 1898 he entered Lombard College ; 
after his Freshman year, he tried to enter West 
Point, succeeding in every test — physical and men- 
tal — except that of arithmetic; there he has my 
hearty sympathy, for in arithmetic I was always 
slow but not sure. He returned to Lombard, and 
took the regular course for the next three years, 
paying his way by hard work. His literary ambi- 



•JiH) AOVAXCH OF KNOLISH POETRY 

Won had already boon awakeuod, and he attained 
distinction among his mates. Since gradnation. 
he has had constant and varied experience in jonr- 
nalism. For a group ot' poems, of which the first 
was Chicaoo. he was awarded the Levinson prize 
as the best poem by an Americ^ui that had ap- 
peared in Poctrt/ during the year CVtober 1913- 
October 1914. In 191 1> appeared a substantial 
vohinie from his pen. called Chicago Poems. 

11 is work gives one the impression of being 
chaotic in form and content. Miss Ixiwell quotes 
him as saying, "1 don't know where I'm gvnng. but 
I*m on my way." According to 0. K. Chester- 
ton, this attitude was characteristic of modern life 
in general before the war. We don't know where 
we're going. — but Un 's put on more speeil. Per- 
haps the other extreme, so characteristic of our 
southern African friends, is no better, yet it has a 
charm absent in the strenuosity of mere eagerness. 
A Southern negro, being askt\l whither he was 
going, replied "I aint goin' nowhar: Ise been done 
gone whar I was ginn'!" It would appear that 
ther\^ is sufticient room Ivtween these extremes 
for individual and social progress. 

In manner Mr. Sandburg is closer to Walt Whit- 
man than almost any other of our contemporary 
poets, I do not ciill him an imitator, and certainly 
he is no plagiarist : but I like that part of his work 
which is farthest removt\i from the manner of the 
man of Camden. Walt Whitman was a genius; 
and whilst it is quite possible and at times desir- 



CAKL SA^'DBUKCT 291 

able to iiuitate his freedom in oomposition, it is 
not possible to cateli the secret of his power. It 
would be an ungracious task to quote Mr. Sand- 
burg at his worst; we are all pretty bad at our 
worst, whether we are poets or not; I prefer to 
cite one of his poems which proves to me that 
he is not only an original writer, but that he pos- 
sesses a perceptive power of beauty that trans- 
forms the conmionplace into something of poig- 
nant charm, like the song of the nightingale: 

Desolate and lone 

All nitrht lon^: on the lake 

"Where t'og trails and mist eret^ps. 

The whistle of a boat 

Calls and ories unendingly, 

Like some lost ohild 

In teai-s and tnnible 

Hunting the htvrbour's breast 

And the harbour's eyes. 

He has a notable gift for effective poetic figures 
of "speech; in his Xocturne in a Deserted Brick- 
uard, an old pond in the moonlight is a "wide 
dreaming pansy." This and other pieces show 
true power of poetic interpretation; which makes 
me believe that the author ought to and will 
greatly surpass the average excellence exhibited 
in Chicapo Poems. 

John Curtis Underwood is not only a d\niamic, 
but an insurgent poet and critic. Pie has pub- 
lished four volumes of poems. The Iron Muse 
(1910). Amerietins (1912), Processiouals (1915), 
and IT'(7r Flames (1917). The roar of city streets 



292 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH TOETRY 

and the deafening pounding of machinery resound 
through his pages ; vet he somehow or other makes 
a singing voice heard amid the din. In fact, he 
uses the din as an accompaniment; he is a kind of 
vocal Tubal Cain. He writes about strap-hang- 
ers, chorus girls, moving pictures, convicts, hos- 
pitals, bridge-builders and construction gangs — a 
symphony of noise, where everybody plays some 
instrument. He is no pessimist and he is not 
sour; there are a good many *' damns" and ''hells" 
in his verse, because, whatever he lacks, he does 
not lack emphasis. His philosophy seems to be 
similar to that of the last two stanzas of In 
Mcmoriam, though Mr. Underwood expresses it 
somewhat more concretely. 

Leading the long procession tlinniirh the midnight. 
Man that was ether, tire, sea, germ and ape. 
Out of the aeons blind of slime emerging. 
Out of the aeons black where ill went groping. 
Finding the tire, was fused to human shape. 

Heading the dreary marches through dark ages; 
"Where the rest perishetl that the rest might be. 
Out of the aeons raw and red of bloodshed. 
^Nfaii that was caveman, found the stars. Forever 
Man to the stars goes marching from the sea. 

His poem Central . in which the telephone girl's 
work is intei-preted, is as typical as any of Mr. 
Underwood's style; and no one, I think, can fail 
to see the merit in his method. 

Though men mjvy build their bridges high and plant their piers 
below the sea. 



JOHN G. NEIHARDT 293 

Aud drive their trains across the sky; a higher task is left to 

me. 
I bridge the void 'twixt soul and soul; I bring the longing 

lovers near. 
I draw you to your spirit's goal. I serve the ends of fraud 

and fear. 

The older fates sat in the sun. The cords they spun were 

short and slight. 
I set my stitches one by one, where life electric fetters night, 
Till it outstrips the planet's speed, and out of darkness leaps 

to day; 
And men in Maine shall hear and heed a voice from San 

Francisco Bay. 

There is such a display of comical cleverness in 
the verse of T. S. Eliot that I think he might be 
able to write almost anything except poetry. He 
has an aggressive champion in the distinguished 
novelist, May Sinclair, who says his best work is 
equal to the best of Robert Browiiing. 

John Gr. Neihardt was born in Illmois on the 
eighth of January, 1881. From 1901 to 1907 he 
lived among the Nebraska Indians, studying their 
folklore and characteristics. He has published a 
number of books, of which the best is perhaps A 
Bundle of Myrrh, 1907. In 1915 he produced an 
epic of the American Fur Trade, preparing him- 
self for the task as follows: "I descended the 
Missouri in an open boat, and also ascended the 
Yellowstone for a considerable distance. On the 
upper river the country was practically un- 
changed; and for one familiar with what had 
taken place there, it was no difficult feat of the 
imagination to revive the details of that time — 



•:04 APVAXOK OF KXOT.lSn rOETRY 

the men. the trails, the boats, the tradinir posts 
Avhoro veritable satraps once ruled under the 
sway of the Amerioi^n Fur Company." 

I heartily eu\y him these exi^vrieuees ; to me 
every river is an adventure, even the quiet, serious 
old Conneeliout. 

Yet the poem that resulted from these visions is 
not remarkable. Nothing, I suppose, is more dif- 
ficult than to write a good long poem. Poe dis- 
approved of the undertaking in itself; and only 
men of undoubted genius have sueoeevleil whereas 
writers of hardly more than onlinary talent have 
^Hvasionally turned otY something eombining 
brevity and exeellenee. I feel sure that Mr. Xei- 
hardt talks about this journey more impressively 
than he writes about it. His love lyrics, in .4 
Fuudlc of Munh. are much better. The ten- 
dency to eroticism is redeemed by sincerity of 
feeling. 

Charles Wharton Stork was born at Philadel- 
phia, on the twelfth of February, ISSl, and 
studieii at Haverforvi, Harvani, and the Univer- 
sity of Pennsylvania. Tie is a scholar, a member 
of the F.nglish Faculty of the University of Penn- 
sylvania, and has made many translations of 
So^uidinavian poems. Always interestevl in mod- 
ern developments of poetry, K»th in America and 
Europe, he is at present the eviitor of Contetn- 
porarff Verse, a monthly magaxine exclusively 
made up of original |vems. This pericxiical has 
Kvn of cvmsiderable assistance to students^ of con- 



M. L. FISHER 205 

tompornry pootry. for it has givon an oppor- 
tunity to hitherto unkno^^^l writers, and often it 
contains some notaWe contribution from men of 
established reputation. Thus the number for 
April, 1918. may some day have bibliographical 
value, since it leads off ^^'ith a remarkable poem 
by Vacliel Lindsay, The Etfes of Quccu Esther. 
I advise collectors to secure this, and to subscribe 
to the magazine. Mr. Stork has written mucli 
verse himself, of which FIin)i(j F'u<h: an Ode. may 
be t^iken as illustrative of his originality and im- 
agination. 

Another excellent magazine of contemporary 
poetry is The Sonnet, edited and published by 
Alahlon Leonard Fisher, at Williamsport, Penn- 
sylvania, of which the tirst number bears the date 
February. 1917. This appears bimonthly; and 
while the attempt to publish any magazine what- 
ever displays courage. Mr. Fisher is apparently 
on the side of the consers-ativos in art. "We 
have attempted no propagandism. and acknowl- 
edged no revolution." is the sentence that forms 
the signature to his periodical. Furthermore, we 
are informed that "the sole aim of The Sonnet is 
to publish poetry so well thought of by its makers 
that they were willing to place it within strict con- 
tines. The magazine will have nothing to say in 
defence of its name. It will neither attack nor 
respond to attacks." It has certainly printed 
some good sonnets, among which are many by the 
editor. In 1917 appeared a beautiful little vol- 



296 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

ume, limited to two hundred copies, and pub- 
lished by the author — Sonnets: a First Series. 
Fifty specimens are included, all written by Mr. 
Fisher. More than a few have grace and truth. 

A new aspirant appeared in 1917 with his first 
volume, Streets and Faces. This is Scudder Mid- 
dleton, brother of George Middleton, the dram- 
atist. He was born at New York, on the ninth of 
September, 1888, and studied at Columbia. His 
little book of poetry contains nothing profound, 
yet there is evidence of undoubted talent which 
gives me hope. The best poem of his that I have 
seen was published in Contemporary Verse in 
1917, and makes a fine recessional to Mr. Braith- 
waite's Anthology. 

THE POETS 

We need you now, strong' guardians of our hearts, 

Now, when a darkness lies on sea and land,^ 
When we of weakening faith forget our parts 

And bow before the falling of the sand. 
Be with us now or we betray our trust 

And say, "There is no wisdom but in death" — 
Remembering lovely eyes now closed with dust — 

"There is no beauty that outlasts the breath." 
For we are growing blind and cannot see. 

Beyond the clouds that stand like prison bars, 
The changeless regions of our empery. 

Where once we moved in friendship with the stars. 
children of the light, now in our grief 
Give us again the solace of belief. 

A young Princeton student, John Peale Bishop, 
First Lieutenant of Infantry in the OflScers Re- 



WILLIAM ASPENWALL BRADLEY 297 

serve Corps, who studied the art of verse under 
the instruction of Alfred Noyes, published in 1917 
a little book of original poems, with the modest 
title, Green Fruit. These were mostly written 
during his last undergraduate year at college, and 
would not perhaps have been printed now had he 
not entered the service. The subjects range from 
the Princeton Inn to Italy. Mr. Bishop is a clear- 
voiced singer, and there are original songs here, 
which owe nothing to other poets. Such a poem 
as Mushrooms is convincing proof of ability; and 
there is an excellent spirit in him. 

"William Aspenwall Bradley was born at Hart- 
ford, Connecticut, on the eighth of February, 1878. 
He was a special student at Harvard, and took his 
bachelor's and master's degrees at Columbia. He 
is now in the Government War Service. He wrote 
an admirable Life of Bryant in the English Men of 
Letters series, and has made many scholarly con- 
tributions to the literature of criticism. He has 
issued two volumes of original verse, of which per- 
haps the better known is Old Christmas, 1917. 
This is composed of tales of the Cumberland 
region in Kentucky. These poem-stories are not 
only full of dramatic power, comic and tragic, but 
they contain striking portraits. I think, however, 
that I like best Mr. Bradley's nature-pictures. 
The pleasure of recognition will be felt by every- 
one who reads the first few lines of 



298 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

AUTUMN 

Now shorter grow November days, 
And leaden ponds begin to glaze 
With their first ice, wliile every night 
The hoarfrost leaves the meadows white 
Like wimples spread upon the lawn 
By maidens who are up at dawn, 
And sparkling diamonds may be seen 
Strewing the close-clipped golfing green. 
But the slow sun dispels at noon 
The season's work begun too soon, 
Bidding faint filmy mists arise 
And fold in softest draperies 
The distant woodlands bleak and bare, 
Until they seem to melt in air. 

William Griffiths was born at Memphis, Mis- 
souri, on the fifteenth of February 1876, and re- 
ceived his education at the public schools. He 
has been a ''newspaper man" and magazine edi- 
tor, and has produced a number of books in verse 
and prose, of which the best example is City Pas- 
torals, originally published in 1915, revised and 
reissued in 1918. The title of this book appears 
to be a paradox; but its significance is clear 
enough after one has read a few pages. It is an 
original and interesting way of bringing the 
breath of the country into the to^\^l. The scene 
is a New York Club on a side street ; the year is 
1914; the three speakers are Brown, Gray, Green; 
the four divisions are Spring, Summer, Autumn, 
Winter. The style is for the most part rimed 
stanzas in short metre, which go trippingly on the 
tongue. Grace and delicacy characterize the pic- 



WILLIAM GRIFFITHS 299 

tures of the country that the men bring back to the 
smoky city from their travels. 

Occultly through a riven cloud 

The ancient river shines again, 
Still wandering like a silver road 

Among the cities in the plain. 

On far horizons softly lean 

The hills against the coming night; 

And mantled with a russet green, 
The orchards gather into sight. 

Through apples hanging high and low, 

In ruddy colours, deeply spread 
From core to rind, the sun melts slow. 

With gold upcaught against the red. 

And here and there, with sighs and calls, 

Among the hills an echo rings 
Remotely as the water falls 

And down the meadow softly sings. 

A wind goes by ; the air is stirred 
With secret whispers far and near; 

Another token — just a word 

Had made the rose's meaning clear. 

I see the fields; I catch the scent 

Of pine cones and the fresh split wood, 

Where bearded moss and stains are blent 
With autumn rains — and all is good. 

An air, arising, turns and lifts 

The fallen leaves where they had lain 

Beneath the trees, then weakly shifts 
And slowly settles back again. 

While with far shouts, now homeward bound. 

Across the fields the reapers go; 
And, with the darkness closing round. 

The hlies of the twilight blow. 



300 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETEY 

Many of the other poems in this volume, that 
follow the City Pastorals, are interpretations of 
various individuals and of various nationalities. 
Mr. Griffith has a gift for the making of epigrams ; 
and indeed he has studied concision in all his 
work. It may be that this is a result of his long 
years of training in journalism; he must have 
silently implored the writers of manuscripts he 
was forced to read to leave their damnable faces 
and begin. Certain it is, that although he can 
write smoothly flowing music, there is hardly a 
page in his whole book that does not contain 
some idea worth thinking about. His wine of 
Cyprus has both body and bouquet. 

Three professional teachers of youth who write 
poetry as an avocation are John Erskine, pro- 
fessor at Columbia, whose poems bear the impress 
of an original and powerful personality, William 
Ellery Leonard, professor in the University of 
Wisconsin, the author of a number of volumes of 
poems, some of which show originality in concep- 
tion and style, and William Thornton Whitsett, of 
Whitsett Institute, Whitsett, North Carolina, 
whose book Saber and Song (1917), exhibits such 
variations in merit that if one read only a few 
pages one might be completely deceived as to the 
author's actual ability. His besetting sin as an 
artist is moralizing. Fully half the contents of 
the volume are uninspired, commonplace, flat. 
But when he forgets to preach, he can write true 
poetry. He has the lyrical gift to a high degree, 



HELEN HAY WHITNEY 301 

and lias a rather remarkable command of the tech- 
nique of the art. An Ode to Expression, The Soul 
of ihc Sea, and some of the Sonnets, fully justify 
tlioir public^ition. The author is rather too fond 
of the old ** poetic diction"; he might do well to 
study simplicity. 

A poet who differs from the two last mentioned 
in her ability to maintain a certain level of excel- 
lence is Helen Hay AVhitney. She perhaps in- 
herited her ahnost infallible good taste and liter- 
ary tact from her distinguished father, that wholly 
admirable person, John Hay. His greatness as 
an international statesman was matched by the 
extraordinary charm of his character, which ex- 
pressed itself in everything he wrote, and in 
numberless acts of kindness. He was the ideal 
American gentleman. One feels in reading the 
poems of Mrs. Whitney that each one is written 
both creatively and critically. I mean that she 
has the primal impulse to write, but that in writ- 
ing, and more especially in revising, every line 
is submitted to her own severe scrutiny. I am 
not sure that she has not destroyed some of her 
best work, though this is of course only conjecture. 
At all events, while she makes no mistakes, I 
sometimes feel that there is too much repression. 
She is one of our best American sonnet-writers. 
Such a poem as After Bain is a work of art. 

Corinne Roosevelt Robinson (Mrs. Douglas 
Robinson, sister of Theodore Roosevelt) has pub- 
lished two volumes of poems. The Call of Brotli- 



302 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

erhood, 1912, and One Woman to Another, 1914. 
I hope that she Tvill speedily coUeet in a third book 
the fugitive pieces printed in various magazines 
since 1914. Mrs. Eobinson's poetry- comes from a 
full mind and a fuU heart. There is the knowl- 
edge bom of experience combined with spiritual 
revelation. She is an excellent illustration of 
the possibility of living to the uttermost in the 
crowded avenues of the world Arithout any loss of 
rehgious or moral values. It must take a strong 
nature to absorb so much of the strenuous activi- 
ties of metropolitan society while keeping the 
heart's sources as clear as a mountain spring. It 
is the exact opposite of asceticism, yet seems not 
to lose anything important gained by the ascetic 
vocation. She does not sen-e God and Mammon : 
she serves God, and makes Mammon serve her. 
This complete roundness and richness of develop- 
ment could not have been accomplished except 
through pain. She expresses grief's contribution 
in the following sonnet : 

Beloved, from the hour that you Tvere bom 
I loved you -with the love -whose birth is pain ; 
And now. that I have lost you. I must mourn 
With mortal anguish, bom of love again ; 
And so I knoTv that Love and Pain are one, 
Yet not one single joy would I forego. — 
The very radiance of the tropic sun 
Makes the dark night but darker here below. 
Mine is no coward soul to count the cost; 
The coin of love with lavish hand I spend, 
And though the sunlight of my life is lost 
And I must walk in shadow to the end, — 



WITTER BYNNER 303 

I gladly press the cross against my heart — 
And welcome Pain, that is Love's counterpart ! 

Meredith Nicholson, the American novelist, like 
Mr. Galsworthy, Mr. Phillpotts and many other 
novelists in England, has published a volume of 
original verse, Poems, 1906. It is possibly a sign 
of the growing interest in poetry that so many 
who have w^on distinction in prose should in 
these latter days strive for the laurel crowm. Mr. 
Nicholson's poems are a kind of riming journal 
of his heart. It is clear that he is not a born 
poet, for the flame of inspiration is not in these 
pages, nor do we find the perfect phrase or ravish- 
ing music; what we do have is well worth preser- 
vation in print — the manly, dignified, imaginative 
speculations of a clear and honest mind. Fur- 
thermore, although he writes verse with his left 
hand, there is displayed in many of these pieces 
a masteiy of the exact meaning of words, at- 
tained possibly by his long years of training in 
the other harmony of prose. 

Witter Bynner — the spelling of w^hose name I 
defy any one to remember, and envelopes ad- 
dressed to him must be a collection of curiosities 
— was born at Brooklyn on the tenth of August, 
1881. He was graduated from Harvard in 1902, 
and addressed his Alma Mater in an Ode To Har- 
vard, published in book form in 1907. In 1917 he 
collected in one attractive volume, Grenstone 
Poems, the best of his production — exclusive of 
his plays and prose — up to that date. One who 



304 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

knew Mr. Bynner only by the terrific white slave 
drama Tiger, would be quite unprepared for the 
sylvan sweetness of the Grenstone poems. 
Their environment, mainly rural, does not localize 
the sentiment overmuch; for the poet's mind is a 
kingdom, even though he is bounded in a nutshell. 
The environment, however, may be partly respon- 
sible for the spirit of healthy cheerfulness that 
animates these verses; whatever they lack, they 
certainly do not lack purity and charm. Far 
from the madding crowd the singer finds con- 
tentment, which is the keynote of these songs; 
happiness built on firm indestructible founda- 
tions. Some of the divisional titles indicate the 
range of subjects: Neighbors and the Country- 
side, Children and Death, Wisdom and Unwisdom, 
Celia, Away from Grenstone, where homesickness 
is expressed while travelling in the Far East. 
And the tone is clearly sounded in 

A GRACE BEFORE THE POEMS 

"Is there such a place as Grenstone?" 

Celia, hear them ask! 
Tell me, shall we share it with them? — 

Shall we let them breathe and bask 

On the windy, sunny pasture, 

Where the hill-top turns its face 
Toward the valley of the mountain. 

Our beloved place? 

Shall we show them through our churchyard. 

With its crumbling wall 
Set between the dead and living? 

Shall our willowed waterfall, 



PERCY MACKAYE 305 

Huckleberries, pines and bluebirds 

Be a secret we shall share? — 
If they make but little of it, 

Celia, shall we care? 

It will be seen that the independence of Mr. 
Bynner is quite different from the independence of 
Mr. Underwood; but they both have the secret of 
self-sufficiency. 

Another loyal Harvard poet is Herman Hage- 
dorn, who was born at New York in 1882, and 
took his degree at college in 1907. For some time 
he was on the English Faculty at Harvard, and 
has a scholar's knowledge of English literature. 
He has published plays and books of verse, of 
which the best known are A Troop of the Guard 
(1909) and Poems and Ballads, which appeared 
the same year. He has a good command of lyrical 
expression, which ought to enable him in the years 
to come to produce work of richer content than 
his verses have thus far shown. 

The best known of the Harvard poets of the 
twentieth centuiy is Percy Mackaye, who is still 
better known as a playwright and maker of 
pageants. He was born at New York, on the six- 
teenth of March, 1875, and was graduated from 
Harvard in 1897. He has travelled much in Eu- 
rope, and has given many lectures on dramatic 
art in America. His poetry may be collectively 
studied in one volume of appalling avoirdupois, 
published in 1916. It takes a strong wrist to 
hold it, but it is worth the effort. 



306 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETKY 

The chief difficulty with Mr. Mackaye is his in- 
ability to escape from his opinions. He is far 
too self-conscious, much too much preoccupied 
mth theory, both in drama and in poetry. He can 
write nothing without explaining his motive, with- 
out trying to show himself and others the aim of 
poetry and drama. However morally noble all 
this may be — and it surely is that — it hampers the 
author. I wish he could for once completely for- 
get all artistic propaganda, completely forget him- 
self, and give his Muse a chance. ' ' She needs no 
introduction to this audience. ' ' 

There is no doubt that he has something of the 
divine gift. His Centenary Ode on Lincoln, pub- 
lished separately in 1909, was the best out of all 
the immense number of effusions I read that year. 
He rose to a great occasion. 

One of his most original pieces is the dog-vivi- 
section poem, called The Heart in the Jar. There 
is a tumultuous passion in it almost overpower- 
ing; and no one but a true poet could ever have 
thought of or have employed such symbolism. 
Mr. Mackaye 's mind is so alert, so inquisitive, so 
volcanic, that he seems to me always just about 
to produce something that shall surpass his pre- 
vious efforts. I have certainly not lost faith in 
his future. 

John Gould Fletcher was born at Little Kock, 
Arkansas, in 1886. He studied at Andover and at 
Harvard, and has lived much in London. He has 
become identified with the Imagists. Personally 



CONRAD AIKEN 307 

I wish that Mr. Fletcher would use his remark- 
able power to create gorgeous imagery in the 
production of orthodox forms of verse. Free 
verse ought to be less monotonous than constantly 
repeated sonnets, quatrains, and stanza-forms; 
but the fact is just the other way. A volume 
made up entirely of free verse, unless written by 
a man of genius, has a capacity to bore the reader 
that at times seems almost criminal. 

Conrad Aiken was bom at Savannah, Georgia, 
on the fifth of August, 1889, is a graduate of Har- 
vard and lives in Boston. He has published sev- 
eral volumes of poems, among which Earth Tri- 
umphant (1914) is representative of his ability 
and philosophy. It certainly represents his abil- 
ity more fairly than The Jig of Forslin (1916), 
which is both pretentious and dull. I suspect few 
persons have read every page of it. I have. 

Not yet thirty, Mr. Aiken is widely known ; but 
the duration of his fame will depend upon his 
future work. He has thus far shown the power to 
write melodious music, to paint nature pictures 
in warm colours ; he is ever on the quest of Beauty. 
His sensible preface to Earth Triumphant calls 
attention to certain similarities between his style 
in verse-narrative and that of John Masefield. 
But he is not a copier, and his work is his own. 
Some poets are on the earth; some are in the air; 
some, like Shelley, are in the aether. Conrad 
Aiken is firmly, gladly on the earth. He believes 
that our only paradise is here and now. 



308 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

He surely has the gift of singing speech, but his 
poetry lacks intellectual content. In the volume, 
Nocturne of Remembered Spring (1917), there is a 
dreamy charm, like the hesitating notes of Chopin. 

Although his contribution to the advance of 
poetry is not important, he has the equipment 
of a poet. When he has more to say, he will 
have no difficulty in making us listen; for he un- 
derstands the magic of words. Thus far his 
poems are something like librettos; they don't 
mean much without the music. Let him remem- 
ber the bitter cry of old Henry Vaughan: every 
artist, racked by labour-pains, will understand 
what Vaughan meant by calling this piece 
Anguish: 

! 'tis an easy thing 
To write and sing; 
But to write true, unfeigned verse 
Is very hard ! God, disperse 
These weights, and give my spirit leave 
To act as well as to conceive ! 

Among our young American poets there are 
few who have inherited in richer or purer measure 
than William Alexander Percy. He was born at 
Greenville, Mississippi, on the fourth of May, 
1885, and studied at the University of the South 
and at the Harvard Law School. He is now in 
military service. In 1915, his volume of poems, 
Sappho in Leuhas, attracted immediately the at- 
tention of discriminating critics. The prologue 
shows that noble devotion to art, that high faith 
in it, entirely beyond the understanding of the 



WILLIAM ALEXANDEE PERCY 309 

Philistine, but which awakens an instant and 
accurate vibration in the heart of every lover of 
poetry. 

singing heart, think not of aught save song; 

Beauty can do no wrong. 
Let but th' inviolable music shake 
Golden on golden flake, 
Down to the human throng, 
And one, one surely, will look up, and hear and wake. 

Weigh not the rapture; measure not nor sift 

God's dark, delirious gift; 
But deaf to immortality or gain, 

Give as the shining rain, 

Thy music pure and swift. 
And here or there, sometime, somewhere, 'twill reach the grain. 

There is a wide range of subjects in this volume, 
Greek, mediaeval, and modern — inspiration from, 
books and inspiration from outdoors. But there 
is not a single poem that could be called crude or 
flat. Mr. Percy is a poet and an artist; he can 
be ornate and he can be severe; but in both 
phases there is a dignity not always characteristic 
of contemporary verse. I do not prophesy — but 

1 feel certain of this man. 

One day in 1917, I clipped a nameless poem 
from a daily newspaper, and carried it in my 
pocketbook for months. Later I discovered that 
it was written by Mr. Percy, and had first ap- 
peared in The Bellman. I know of no poem by 
any American published in the year 1917 that for 
combined beauty of thought and beauty of expres- 
sion is superior to this little masterpiece. 



310 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 



OVERTONES 

I heard a bird at break of day 

Sing from the autumn trees 
A song so mystical and calm, 

So full of certainties, 
No man, I think, could listen long 

Except upon his knees. 
Yet this was but a simple bird, 

Alone, among dead trees. 

Alan Seeger — whose heroic death glorified his 
youth — was born at New York on the twenty-sec- 
ond of June, 1888. He studied at Harvard; then 
lived in Paris, and no one has ever loved Paris 
more than he. He enlisted in the Foreign Legion 
of France at the outbreak of the war in 1914, and 
fell on the fourth of July, 1916. His letters show 
his mind and heart clearly. 

He knew his poetry was good, and that it would 
not die with his body. In the last letter he wrote, 
we find these words: **I will write you soon if I 
get through all right. If not, my only earthly 
care is for my poems. Add the ode I sent you 
and the three sonnets to my last volume and you 
will have opera omnia quae existant." 

He wrote his autobiography in one of his last 
sonnets, paying poetic tribute to Philip Sidney — 
lover of woman, lover of battle, lover of art. 

Sidney, in whom the heydey of romance 
Came to its precious and most perfect flower, 
Whether you tourneyed with victorious lance 
Or brought sweet roundelays to Stella's bower. 



ALAN SEEGER 311 

I give myself some credit for the way 

I have kept clean of what enslaves and lowers, 

Shunned the ideals of our present day 

And studied those that were esteemed in yours; 

For, turning from the mob that buys Success 

By sacrificing all life's better part, 

Down the free roads of human happiness 

I frolicked, poor of purse but light of heart, 

And lived in strict devotion all along 

To my three idols — Love and Arms and Song. 

His most famous poem, / Have a Rendezvous 
with Death, is almost intolerably painful in its 
tragic beauty, in its contrast between the dark- 
ness of the unchanging shadow and the apple-blos- 
soms of the sunny air — above all, because we read 
it after both Youth and Death have kept their 
word, and met at the place appointed. 

He was an inspired poet. Poetry came from 
him as naturally as rain from clouds. His mag- 
nificent Ode in Memory of the American Volun- 
teers Fallen in France has a nobility of phrase 
that matches the elevation of thought. Work like 
this cannot be forgotten. 

Alan Seeger was an Elizabethan. He had a 
consuming passion for beauty — his only religion. 
He loved women and he loved war, like the gallant, 
picturesque old soldiers of fortune. There was 
no pose in all this ; his was a brave, uncalculating, 
forthright nature, that gave everything he had 
and was, without a shade of fear or a shade of 
regret. He is one of the most fiery spirits of our 
time, and like Rupert Brooke, he will be thought 
of as immortally young. 



CHAPTER XI 

A GROUP OP YALE POETS 

Henry A. Beers — the fine quality of his literary style in 
prose and verse — force and grace — finished art — his humour — ■ 
C. M. LeA\as — his war poem — E. B. Reed — Lyra Yalensis — 
F. E. Pierce — his farm lyrics — Brian Hooker — his strong 
sonnets — his Turns — R. C. Rogers — The Rosanj — Rupert 
Hughes — novelist, playwright, musician, poet — Robert Hun- 
ger — his singing — R. B. Glaenzer — his fancies — Benjamin R. 
C. Low — his growth — William R. Benet — his vitality and op- 
timism — Arthur Colton — his Chaucer poem — Allan Updegraff 
— The Time and the Place — Lee Wilson Dodd — his develop- 
ment — a list of other Yale Poets — Stephen V. Benet. 

During tlie twentieth century there has been 
flowing- a fountain of verse from the faculty, young 
alumni, and undergraduates of Yale University; 
and I reserve this space at the end of my book for 
a consideration of the Yale group of poets, some 
of whom are already widely known and some of 
whom seem destined to be. I am not thinking of 
magazine verse or of fugitive pieces, but only of 
independent volumes of original poems. Yale 
has always been close to the national life of 
America; and the recent outburst of poetiy from 
her sons is simply additional evidence of the re- 
naissance all over the United States. Anyhow, 
the fact is worth recording. 

Professor Henry A. Beers was born at Buffalo 
on the second of July, 1847. He w^as admitted to 

312 



A GROUP OF YALE POETS 313 

the New York Bar in 1870, but in 1871 became an 
Instructor in English Literature at Yale, teach- 
ing continuously for forty-five years, when he 
retired. He has written — at too rare intervals — 
all his life. His book of short stories, containing 
A Suhurhan Pastoral and Split Zephyr, the last- 
named being, according to Meredith Nicholson, 
the best story of college life ever printed, would 
possibly have attracted more general attention 
were it not for its prevailing tone of quiet, unob- 
trusive pessimism, an unwelcome note in America. 
I am as sure of the high quality of A Suburban 
Pastoral as I am sure of anything; and have never 
found a critic who, after reading the tale, dis- 
agreed with me. In 1885 Professor Beers pub- 
lished a little volume of poems, The Thankless 
Muse; and in 1917 he collected in a thin book The 
Two Twilights, the best of his youthful and ma- 
ture poetic production. The variety of expres- 
sion is so great that no two poems are in the same 
mood. In Love, Death, and Life we have one of 
the most passionate love-poems in American lit- 
erature ; in The Pasture Bars the valediction has 
the soft, pure tone of a silver bell. 

Professor Beers has both vigour and grace. 
His fastidious taste permits him to write little, 
and to print only a small part of what he writes. 
But the force of his poetic lan.guage is so extraor- 
dinary that it has sometimes led to a complete and 
unfortunate misinterpretation of his work. In 
The Dying Pantheist to the Priest, he wrote a 



314 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

poem as purely dramatic, as non-personal, as the 
monologues of Browning; he quite successfully 
represented the attitude of an (imaginary) de- 
fiant, unrepentant pagan to an (imaginary) priest 
who wished to save him in his last moments. The 
speeches put into the mouth of the pantheist no 
more represent Mr. Beers 's own sentiments 
than Browning's poem Confessions represented 
Browning's attitude toward death and religion; 
yet it is perhaps a tribute to the fervour of the 
lyric that many readers have taken it as a violent 
attack on Christian theology. 

Just as I am certain of the finished art of A 
Subiirban Pastoral, I am equally certain of the 
beauty and nobility of the poetry in The Ttvo Twi- 
lights. This volume gives its author an earned 
place in the front rank of living American poets. 

To me one of the most original and charming of 
the songs is the valediction to New York — and the 
homage to New Haven. 

NUNC DIMITTIS 

Highlands of Navesink, 
By the blue ocean's brink, 
Let your grey bases drink 

Deep of the sea. 
Tide that comes flooding up, 
Fill me a stirrup cup, 
Pledge me a parting sup, 

Now I go free. 

Wall of the Palisades, 

I know where greener glades, 

Deeper glens, darker shades. 



A GROUP OF YALE POETS 315 

Hemlock and pine, 
Far toward the morning lie 
Under a bluer sky, 
Lifted by cliifs as high, 

Haunts that are mine. 

Marshes of Hackensack, 
See, I am going back 
Where the Quinnipiac 

Winds to the bay, 
Down its long meadow track, 
Piled in the myriad stack, 
Where in wide bivouac 

Camps the salt hay. 

Spire of old Trinity, 
Never again to be 
Seamark and goal to me 

As I walk down; 
Chimes on the upper air, 
Calling in vain to prayer. 
Squandering your music where 

Roars the black town: 

Bless me once ere I ride 
Off to God's countryside, 
Where in the treetops hide 

Belfry and bell; 
Tongues of the steeple towers, 
Telling the slow-paced hours — 
Hail, thou still town of ours — 

Bedlam, farewell ! 

Those who are familiar with Professor Beers 's 
humour, as expressed in The Ways of Yale, will 
wish that he had preserved also in this later book 
some of his whimsicalities, as in the poem A Fish 
Story, which begins : 



316 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

A whale of great porosity, 

And small specific gravity, 
Dived down with much velocity 

Beneath the sea's concavity. 

But soon the weight of water 
Squeezed in his fat immensity, 

Wliieh varied — as it ought to — 
Inversely as his density. 

Professor Charlton M. Lewis was born at 
Brooklyn on the fourth of March, 1866. He took 
his B.A. at Yale in 1886, and an LL.B at Colum- 
bia in 1889. For some years he was a practising 
lawyer in New York ; in 1895 he became a member 
of the Yale Faculty. In 1903 he published 
Gawayne and the Green Knight, a long poem, in 
which humour and imagination are delightfully 
mingled. His lyric Pro Patria (1917) is a good 
illustration of his poetic powers ; it is indeed one 
of America's finest literary contributions to the 
war. 

PRO PATRIA 

Remember, as the flaming car 

Of ruin nearer rolls. 
That of our country's substance are 

Our bodies and our souls. 

Her dust we are, and to her dust 

Our ashes shall descend: 
Who craves a lineage more august 

Or a diviner end? 

y 

By blessing of her fruitful dews, 
\ Her suns and winds and rains. 

We have her granite in our thews, 
Her iron in our veins. 



A GEOUP OF YALE POETS 317 

And, sleeping in her sacred earth, 

The ever-living dead 
On the dark miracle of birth 

Their holy influence shed. . . . 

So, in the faith our fathers kept, 

We live, and long to die; 
To sleep forever, as they have slept, 

Under a sunlit sky; 

Close-folded to our mother's heart 

To find our souls' release — 
A secret coeternal part 

Of her eternal peace; — 

Where Hood, Saint Helen's and Rainier, 

In vestal raiment, keep 
Inviolate through the varying year 

Their immemorial sleep; 

Or where the meadow-lark, in coy 

But calm profusion, pours 
The liquid fragments of his joy 

On old colonial shores. 

Professor Edward B. Eeed, B.A. 1894, pub- 
lislied in 1913 a tiny volume of academic verse, 
called Lyra Yalensis. This contains happily hu- 
morous comment on college life and college cus- 
toms, and as the entire edition was almost imme- 
diately sold, the book has already become some- 
thing of a rarity. In 1917, he collected the best of 
his more ambitious work in Sea Moods, of which 
one of the most impressive is 

THE DAWN 

He shook his head as he turned away — 

"Is it life or death?" "We shall know by day." 



31S ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

Out from the wards where the sick folk lie, 
Out nenth the blaok and bitter sky. 
Past one o'clock and the wind is chill, 
The snow-clad streets are jrhostly still; 
No friendly noise, no cheeriuir lijrlit, 
So calm tlie city sleeps to-niirht, 
I think its soul has taken flig-ht. 

Back to the empty honu^ — a thrill, 

A shudder at its darkened sill. 

For the clock chimes as on that morn. 

That happy day when she was born. 

And now, inexorably slow. 

To life or death the houi-s jro. 

Time's wing:s are clipped; he scarce doth creep. 

Tonight no drug could bring you sleep; 

"Watch at the window for the day; 

'Tis all that's left — to watch and pray. 

But I think the prayer of an anguished heart 

Must pierce that bleak sky like a dart, 

And tear that pall of clouds apart. 

The poplars, edging the frozen lawn. 
Shudder and whisper: "Wait till dawn." 

Two spirits stand beside her bed 

Softly stroking her curly head. 

Death whispers. "Come" — Life whispers, "Stay." 

Child, little child, go not away. 

Life pleads, "Remember" — and Death, "Forget." 

Little child, little child, go not yet. 

By all your mother's love and pain. 

Child of our heart, child of our brain, 

Stay with ns; go not till yo\i see 

The FairyUmd that life can be. 

The poplars, edging the frozen lawn. 

Are dancing and singing. "Thank God — the Dawn !" 

Professor Frederick E. Pierce, B.A. 1904, has 
produced three vohimes of poems, of which The 



A GROUP OF YALE POETS 319 

World that God Destroyed exhibits an epic sweep 
of the imag-ination. He imagines a world far off 
in space, where every form of life has perished 
save rank vegetation. One day in their wander- 
ings over the universe, Lucifer and Michael meet 
on this dead ball. A truce is declared and each 
expresses some of the wisdom bought by experi- 
ence. 

The upas dripped its poison on the ground 
Harmless; the silvery veil of fog went up 
From mouldering fen and cold, malarial pool, 
But brought no taint and threatened ill to none. 
Far off adown the mountain's craggy side 
From time to time the avalanche thundered, sounding 
Like sport of giant children, and the rocks 
Whereon it smote re-echoed innocently. 
Then in a pause of silence Lucifer 
Struck music from the harp again and sang. 

"I am the shadow that the sunbeams bring, 
I am the thorn from which the roses spring; 
Without the thorn would be no blossoming, 

Nor were there shadow if there were no gleam. 
I am a leaf before a wind that blows, 
I am the foam that down the current goes; 
I work a work on earth that no man knows, 
And God works too, — I am not what I seem. 

"There comes a purer mom whose stainless glow 
Shall cast no shadow on the ground below, 
And fairer flowers without the thorn shall blow. 

And earth at last fulfil her parent's dream. 
Oh race of men who sin and know not why, 
I am as you and you are even a.s I; 
We all shall die at length and gladly die; 

Yet even our deaths shall be not what they seem." 



320 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

Then Michael raised the golden l;^Te, and struck 
A note more solemn soft, and made reply. 

"There dwelt a donbt within my mind of yore; 
I sought to end that doubt and laboured sore; 
But now I searcli its mystery no more, 

But leave it safe within the Eternal's hand. 
The tiger hunts the lamb and yeanis to kill, 
Himself by famine hunted, tiercer still; 
And much there is that seems iinmingled ill; 
But God is wise, and God can undei-stand. 

"All things on earth in endless balance sway; 
Day follows uiglit and night succeeds the day; 
And so the i')owei-s of good and evil may 

Work out the pui-pose tluit his wisdom planned. 
Eternal day would parch the dewy mould, 
Eternal night would freeze the lands with cold; 
But wise was God who planned the world of old; 
I rest in Him for He ciin understand. 

"Yet good and evil still their wills oppose; 
And serving both, we still must seiwe as foes 
On yon far globe that teems with human woes; 

And sin thou art, tliough God work through thy hand. 
But here the race of man is now no more; 
The task is done, the long day's work is o'er; 
One hour I'll dream thee what thou wert of yore. 

Though changed thou art, too changed to understand." 

All day sat !^^ichael there with Lucifer 
Talking of things unknown to men, old tales 
And memories dating back beyond all time. 
And all night long beneath tlie lonely stars. 
That watched no more the sins of man, they lay. 
The angel's lofty face at rest against 
The dark cheek scan-ed with thunder. 

Morning came. 
And each departed on his separate way; 
But each looked back and lingered as he passed. 



A GROUP OF YALE POETS 321 

Some of his best work, however, appears in 
short pieces that might best be described as 
lyrics of the farm, or, to use a title discarded by 
Tennyson, Idylls of the Hearth. Mr. Pierce 
knows the lonely farm-houses of New England, 
both by inheritance and habitation, and is a true 
interpreter of the spirit of rural life. 

One of the best-kno\vn of the group of Yale 
poets is Brian Hooker, who was graduated from 
Yale in 1902, and for some years was a member 
of the Faculty. His Poems (1915) are an im- 
])ortant addition to contemporary literature. He 
is a master of the sonnet-form, as any one may 
see for himself in reading 

GHOSTS 

The dead return to us continually; 

Not at the void of ni{?ht, as fables feign, 

In some lone spot where murdered bones have lain 

Wailinp: for venp^eance to the y)asser-by; 

But in the merry clamour and full cry 

Of the brave noon, our dead wliom we have slain 
And in forgotten graves hidden in vain, 

Rise up and stand beside us terribly. 

Sick with the beauty of their dear decay 
We conjure them with laughters onerous 
And drunkenness of labour; yet not thus 
May we absolve ourselves of yesterday — 
We cannot jnit those clinging arms aWay, 
Nor those glad faces yearning over us. 

Mr. Hooker also includes in this volume a num- 
ber of Turns, which he describes as *'a new fixed 
form : Seven lines, in any rhythm, isometric and 



322 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETEY 

of not more than four feet; Eliyming AbacbcA, 
the first line and the last a Eefrain; the Idea (as 
the name suggests) to Turn upon the recurrence 
of the Eefrain at the end with a different sense 
from that which it bears at the beginning. ' ' For 
example : 

MISERERE 

Ah, God, my strength again! — 

Not power, nor joy, but these: 
The waking without pain, 

The ardour for the task. 
And in the evening, peace. 

Is it so much to ask? 
Ah, God, my strength again! 

American literature suffered a loss in the death 
of Eobert Cameron Eogers, of the class of 1883. 
His book of poems, called The Rosary, appeared in 
1906, containing the song by which naturally 
he is best known. Set to music by the late Ethel- 
bert Nevin, it had a prodigious vogue, and in- 
spired a sentimental British novel, whose sales ran 
over a million copies. The success of this ditty 
ought not to prejudice readers against the author 
of it; for he was more than a sentimentalist, as 
his other pieces prove. 

Eupert Hughes is an all around literary athlete. 
He was born in Missouri, on the thirty-first of 
January, 1872, studied at Western Eeserve and 
later at Yale, where he took the degree of M.A. in 
1899. He is of course best known as a novelist 
and playwright; his novel The Thirteenth Com- 



A GEOUP OF YALE POETS 323 

mandment (1916) and his play Excuse Me (1911) 
are among his most successful productions. His 
works in prose fiction are conscientiously realistic 
and the finest of them are accurate chronicles of 
metropolitan life; while his short stories, In a 
Little Town (1917) are, like those of William 
Allen White, truthful both in their representation 
of village manners in the West, and in their recog- 
nition of spiritual values. In view of the ''up- 
to-dateness" of Mr. Hughes's novels, it is rather 
curious that his one long poem Gyges' Ring 
(1901), which was written during his student days 
at Yale, should be founded on Greek legend. Yet 
Mr. Hughes has been a student of Greek all his 
life, and has made many translations from the 
original. I do not care much for Ggges' Ring; it 
is hammered out rather than created. But some 
of the author's short poems, to which he has often 
composed his own musical accompaniment, I find 
full of charm. Best of all, I think, is tlie imagi- 
native and delightful 

WITH A FIRST READER 

Dear little child, this little book 

Is less a primer than a key 
To sunder gates where wonder waits 

Your "Open Sesame!" 

These tiny syllables look large; 

They'll fret your wide, bewildered eyes; 
But "Is the cat ui)on the mat?" 

Is passport to the skies. 



324 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETEY 

For, yet awhile, and you shall turn 
From Mother Goose to Avon's swan; 

From Mai-y's lamb to grim Khayyam, 
And Maneha's mad-wise Don. 

You'll writhe at Jean Val jean's disgrace; 

And D'Artagnan and Ivanhoe 
Shall steal your sleep ; and you shall weep 

At Sidney Carton's woe. 

You'll find old Chaucer young once more, 
Beaumont and Fletcher fierce with fire; 

At your demand, John Milton's hand 
Shall wake his ivory lyre. 

And learning other tongues, you'll learn 
All times are one; all men, one race; 

Hear Homer speak, as Greek to Greek; 
See Dante, face to face. 

Arma virumque shall resound; 

And Horace wreathe his rhymes afresh; 
You'll rediscover Laura's lover; 

Meet Gretchen in the flesh. 

Oh, could I find for the first time 

The Churchyard Elegy again! 
Retaste the sweets of new-found Keats; 

Read Byron now as then! 

Make haste to wander these old roads, 

envied little parvenue; 
For all things trite shall leap alight 

And bloom again for you ! 

Eobert Hunger, B.A., 1897, published in 1912 a 
volume called The Land of Lost Music. He is a 
lyric poet. Melody seems as natural to him as 
speech. 



A GROUP OF YALE POETS 325 

There is a land uncharted of meadows and shimmering moun- 
tains, 

Stiller than moonlight silence brooding and wan, 

The land of long-wandering music and dead unmelodious 
fountains 

Of singing that rose in the dreams of them that are gone. 

That rose in the dreams of the dead and that rise in the dreams 

of the living, 
Fleeting, bodiless songs that passed in the night. 
Winging away on the moment of wonder their cadence was 

giving 
Into the deeps of the valleys of stifled delight, 

Richard Butler Glaenzer, B.A. 1898, whose 
verses have frequently been seen in various pe- 
riodicals, collected them in Beggar and King, 
1917. His poems cover a wide range of thought 
and feeling, but I like him best when he is most 
whimsical, as in 

COMPARISONS 

Jupiter, lost to Vega's realm, 
Lights his lamp from tlie sun-ship's helm : 
Big as a thousand earths, and yet 
Dimmed by the glow of a cigarette! 

Mr. Glaenzer has published a number of verse 
criticisms of contemporary writers, which he calls 
Snapshots. These display considerable penetra- 
tion ; perhaps the following is fairly illustrative. 

CABLE 

To read your tales 

Is like opening a cedar-box 

Of ante-bellum days, 

A box holding the crinoline and fan 



:V26 APVANCK OV ENOUSIT POETRY 

And tho tortoist.>-slioll diary 
With tlowoi-s prossod betwooii tho loavos 
Bolongiiij; to soino liuijrnid tjraiutc lianw 
Of Civolo Now Orlotms. 

InMijainiii K. C Low. B.A. \\){y2, a practisiiiii- 
hnvyor. has publislioil four or tive volumos ot' 
pooms, inoludiiiii' 77/(' Sdilor irlio luis Sailrd 
(UMl). .1 Wand and Stri)i()s (li)ia) and The 
Ui>iisc tJiat Waii (1915). Ho is soon at his best in 
These United States, dodicatod to Alan Seog'or, 
which appeared in the Boston Transeript, 7 Feb- 
ruary, 1917. IMiis is an oriiiinal. vigorous work, 
full of the unexpected, and yet seen to be trne as 
soon as expressed. His verses show a constantly 
increasing- grasp of material, and 1 look for tiner 
things from his pen. 

Although Mr. Low seems to be instinctively a 
romantic poet, he is fond of letting his imaginative 
sympathy play on connnon scenes in city streets; 
as in 77/(' Saiuiirieh Man. 

Tho liirhts oi' town aro pallid yot 

With wintor at'tonnHMi; 
Tho sulliod stroots aro clank and wot, 
Tho haltod niotoi-s t'unio and trot. 
Tho wi)rld turi\s homoward soon. 

Tlioro is no kindlo in tho sky. 

No ohoorinir siinsot thuno; 

I have no holp from passoi-s-by, — 

■^ Thoy part, and givo irood-niirht ; but T . . . 

Walk with anothor's namo. 

I havo no kith, nor kin. nor home 
^Yhorein to turn to sJeopj 



A GROUP OF YALE POETS 327 

No star-lamp Hif'ta me throuf^li the gloam, 
I am tfic driven, waxtrel foam 
On a subsiding deep. 

J do not toil for lov(!, (jr fame, 

Or liofje of liigli reward ; 
My [)atli too low for praise or blame, 
I struggle on, ejwih day the same, 

My panoply — a board. 

Who gave me life I do nc<t know. 

Nor what that life should be. 
Or why I live at all ; I go, 
A demi leaf shivering with snow. 

Under a worn-out tree. 

The lights of town are blurred with mist, 

And pale with afternoon, — 
Of gold they are, and amethyst: 
Dull ftain is creeping at my wrist. . . . 

The world turns homeward soon. 

A poet of national reputation is William Rose 
Benet, who was graduated in 1907. Mr. Benet 
came to Yale from Au^sta, Georg-ia, and since 
his graduation has been connected with the edi- 
torial staff of the Century Magazine. At present 
ho is away in service in France, where his adven- 
turous spirit is at home. Tie may have taken 
some of his reputation with him, for he is sure to 
be a favourite over there; but the fame he left 
))chind him is steadily growing. The very splen- 
dour of romance glows in his spacious poetry; he 
loves to let his imagination run riot, as might be 
guessed merely by reading the names on his 
books. To every one who has ever been touched 



328 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

by the love of a quest, liis title-pag:es will ap- 
peal: The Great White Wall, a tale of ** magic 
adventure, of war and death"; Merchants from 
Cathay (1913), The Falconer of God (1914), The 
Burglar of the Zodiac (1917). His verses surge 
with vitality, as in The Boast of the Tides. He is 
at his best in long, swinging, passionate rhythms. 
Unfortunately in the same measures he is also at 
his worst. His most potent temptation is the love 
of noise, which makes some of his less artistic 
verse sound like organized cheering. 

But when he gets the right tune for the right 
words, he is irresistible. There is no space here 
to quote such a rattling ballad — like a frenzy of 
snare-drums — as Merchants from Cathay, but it 
is not mere sound and fury, it is not swollen 
rhetoric, it is an inspired poem. No one can 
read or hear it without being violently aroused. 
Mr. Benet is a liappy-heai*ted poet, singing with 
gusto of the joy of life. 

ON EDWARD WEBBE, ENGLISH GUNNER 

He met the Dansko pirates off Tuttee; 

Saw the Chrim burn "]\rusko"; speaks with bated breath 

Of his saJe to the crreat Turk, when peril of death 

Chained him to oar their fraHeys on the sea 

Until, as scunner, in Persia they set him free 

To tisrlit tiu'ir foes. Of Prester John he saith 

Astoundinj:: thing's. But Quocmi Elizabeth 

He woi-ships, and his dear Lord on Calvary. 

Quaint is the phrase, ingenuous the wit 

Of this gfreat childish seaman in Palestine, 

]\roeked home through Italy after his release 

With threats of the Armada; and all of it ''" 



A GROUP OF YALE POETS 329 

Warms me like fireliglit jewelling old wine 
In some ghost inn hung with the golden fleece ! 

Arthur Colton, B.A. 1890, is as quiet and reflec- 
tive as Mr. Benet is strenuous. Has any one ever 
better expressed the heart of Chaucer's Troilus 
and Criseyde than in these few words? 

A smile, of flowers, and fresh May, across 
The dreamy, drifting face of old Romance; 
The same reiterate tale of love and loss 
And joy that trembles in the hands of chance; 
And midst his rippling lines old Geoffrey stands, 
Saying, "Pray for me when the tale is done, 
Who see no more the flowers, nor the sun." 

Mr. Colton collected many of his poems in 1907, 
under the title Harps Hung Up in Babylon. He 
had moved from New Haven to New York. 

Allan Updegraff, who left college before taking 
his degree, a member of the class of 1907, recently 
turned from verse to prose, and wrote an admir- 
able novel. Second Youth. He is, however, a true 
poet, and any one might be proud to be the au- 
thor of 

THE TIME AND THE PLACE 

Will you not come? The pines are gold with evening 
And breathe their old-time fragrance by the sea; 
You loved so well their spicy exhalation, — 

So smiled to smell it and old ocean's piquancy; 
And those weird tales of winds and waves' relation — 
Could you forget? Will you not come to me? 

See, 'tis the time : the last long gleams are going. 
The pine-spires darken, mists rise waveringly; 
The gloaming brings the old familiar longing 



330 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

To be re-erooned by twilight voices of the sea. 

And just such tinted wavelets shoreward thronging — 
Could you forget things once so dear — and me? 

"Whatever of the waves is ceaseless longing, 

And of the t'wilight immortality: 

The urge of some wild, inchoate aspiration 
Akin to afterglow and stars and winds and sea: 

This hour makes full and pours out in libation, — 

Could you forget? Will you not come to me? 

What golden galleons sailed into the sunset 

Not to come home unto eternity : 

What souls went outward hopeful of returning, 
Tliis time and tide might well call back across the sea. 

Did we not dream so while old Wests were burning? 

Could you forget such once-dear things — and me? 

From the dimmed sky and long grey waste of waters, 

Lo, one lone sail on all the lonely sea 

A moment blooms to whiteness like a lily. 
As sudden fades, is gone, yet half-seems still to be; 

And you, — though that last time so strange and stilly, — 

Though you are dead, will you not come to me ? 

Lee "Wilson Dodd, at present in service in 
France, was gradnated in 1S99, and for some years 
was engaged in the practice of the law. This oc- 
cnpation he abandoned for literature in 1907. He 
is the author of several successful plays, and has 
published two volumes of verse. The Moder7i Al- 
chemist (1906) and The Middle Miles (1915). 
His growth in the intervening years will be appar- 
ent to any one who compares the two books ; there 
is in his best work a combination of fancy and 
humour. He loves to write about New England 
gardens and discovers beauty by the very simple 



A GROUP OF YALE POETS 331 

process of opening his eyes at home. The follow- 
ing poem is characteristically sincere : 

TO A NEO-PAGAN 

Your praise of Nero leaves me cold: 
Poems of porphyry and of gold, 
Palatial poems, chill my heart. 
I gaze — I wonder — I depart. 
Not to Byzantium would I roam 
In quest of beauty, nor Babylon ; 
Nor do I seek Sahara's sun 
To blind me to the hills of home. 
Here am I native; here the skies 
Bum not, the sea I know is grey; 
Wanly the winter sunset dies. 
Wanly comes day. 
Yet on these hills and near this sea 
Beauty has lifted eyes to me, 
Unlustf ul eyes, clear eyes and kind ; 
While a clear voice chanted — 

"Thet/ who find 
"Me not beside their doorsteps, know 
"Me never, know me never, though 
"Seeking, seeking me, high and lo^v, 
"Forth on the far four winds they go!" 

Therefore your basalt, jade, and gems, 

Your Saracenic silver, your 

Nilotic gods, your diadems 

To bind the brows of Queens, impure. 

Perfidious, passionate, perfumed — these 

Your petted, pagan stage-properties. 

Seem but as toys of trifling worth. 

For I have marked the naked earth 

Beside my doorstep yield to the print 

Of a long light foot, and flash with the glint 

Of crocus-gold — 

Crocus-gold ! 

Crocus-gold no mill may mint 



332 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETEY 

Save the Mill of God — 

The Mill of God ! 

The Mill of God with His angels in't ! 

Other Yale poets are TV. B. Arviue, 1903, whose 
book Hang Up Philosophy (1911), particularly ex- 
cels in the interpretation of natural scenery; 
Frederick M. Clapp, 1901, whose volume On the 
Orerland (since republished in America) was in 
process of printing in Bruges in 1914, when the 
Gennans entered the old town, and smashed 
among other things, the St. Catherine Press. 
Just fifteen copies of Mr. Clapp 's book had been 
struck off, of which I own one; Donald Jacobus, 
1908. whose Poems (1914) are richly meditative; 
James H. AVallis, 1906, who has joined the ranks 
of poets with The Testamefif of WiUkim Wiudune 
and Other Poem^ (1917) ; Leonard Bacon. 1909, 
who modestly called his book, published in the 
year of his graduation. The Serannel Pipe: Ken- 
neth Rand, 1914, who produced two volumes of 
original verse while an undergraduate ; Archibald 
Mac Leish, 1915, whose Tower of Irorif, a collec- 
tion of lyrics, appeared in 1917; Elliot Griffis, a 
student in the School of Music, who published in 
191S under an assumed name a volume called Rain 
in Mat/: and I may close this roU-call by remark- 
ing that those who have seen his work have a 
staunch faith in the future of Stephen Vincent 
Benet. He is a younger brother of WiUiam, and 
is at present a Yale undergraduate. Mr. Benet 
was bom at Bethlehem, Pennsvlvania, on the 



A GROUP OF YALE POETS 333 

twenty-second of July, 1898. His home is at Au- 
gusta, Georgia. Before entering college, and 
when he was seventeen, he published his first vol- 
ume of poems. Five Men and Pompey (1915). 
This was followed in 1917 by another book, The 
Drug Shop. His best single production is the 
Cook prize poem. The Hemp. 



APPENDIX 

I Have a Rendezvotos with Death 

The remarkably impressive and beautiful poem 
by Alan Seeger which bears the above title natur- 
ally attracted universal attention. I had sup- 
posed the idea originated with Stephen Crane, 
who, in his novel The Red Badge of Courage, 
Chapter IX, has the following paragraph : 

At last they saw him stop and stand motionless. Hasten- 
ing up, they perceived that his face wore an expression telling 
that he had at last found the place for which he had struggled. 
His spare figure was erect; his bloody hands were quietly at 
his side. He was waiting with patience for something that he 
had come to meet. He was at the rendezvous. They paused 
and stood, expectant. 

But I am informed both by Professor F. N. Rob- 
inson of Hansard and by Mr. Norreys Jephson 
'Conor that the probable source of the title of 
the poem is Irish. Professor Robinson writes me, 
''The Irish poem that probably suggested to 
Seeger the title of his Rendezvous is the Reicne 
Fothaid Canainne (Song of Fothad Canainne), 
published by Kuno Meyer in his Fianaigecht 
(Dublin, 1910), pp. 1-21. Seeger read the piece 
at one of my Celtic Conferences, and was much 
impressed by it. He got from it only his title and 
the fmidamental figure of a rendezvous with 
Death, the Irish poem being wholly different from 

335 



336 ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY 

his in general purport. Fothad Canainne makes 
a tryst with the wife of Ailill Fhmn, but is slain 
in battle by Ailill on the day before the night set 
for the meeting. Then the spirit of Fothad (or, 
according to one version, his severed head) sings 
the reicne to the woman and declares (st. 3) : 
*It is blindness for one who makes a tryst to set 
aside the tryst with death. ' ' ' 

Miss Amy Lowell, however, believes that Seeger 
got the idea from a French poet. Wherever he 
got it, I believe that he made it his own, for he used 
it supremely well, and it will always be associated 
with him. 

At Harvard, Alan Seeger took the small and 
special course in Irish, and showed enthusiasm for 
this branch of study. Wishing to find out some- 
thing about his undergraduate career, I wrote to 
a member of the Faculty, and received the follow- 
ing reply: ''Many persons found him almost 
morbidly indifferent and unresponsive, and he sel- 
dom showed the full measure of his powers. . . . 
I grew to have a strong liking for him personally 
as well as a respect for his intellectual power. 
But I should never have expected him to show the 
robustness of either mind or body which we now 
know him to have possessed. He was frail and 
sickly in appearance, and seemed to have a tem- 
perament in keeping with his physique. It took 
a strong impulse to bring him out and disclose his 
real capacity." 

There is no doubt that the war gave him this 



APPENDIX 337 

impulse, and that the poem / Have a Rendezvous 
with Death must he classed among the literature 
directly produced by the great struggle. After 
four years, I should put at the head of all the im- 
mense number of verses inspired by the war John 
Masefield's August 1914, Alan Seeger's I Have a 
Rendezvous with Death, and Rupert Brooke 's The 
Soldier; and of all the poems written by men actu- 
ally fighting, I should put Alan Seeger's first. 

While reading these proofs, the news comes of 
the death of a promising young American poet, 
Joyce Kilmer, a sergeant in our army, who fell 
in France, August, 1918. He was born 6 Decem- 
ber, 1866, was a graduate of Rutgers and Colum- 
bia, and had published a number of poems. His 
supreme sacrifice nobly closed a life filled with 
beauty in word and deed. 



INDEX 

[Only important references are given; the mere mention of names 
is omitted.] 



Abercrombie, L., 123. 

Adams, F. P., 276. 

"A. E." (G. W. Russell), 177- 
182; personality, 178; a sin- 
cere mystic, 179; assurance, 
180; discovery of Stephens, 
178; influence on Susan 
Mitchell, 187. 

Aiken, C, 308. 

Andrews, C. E., From the 
Front, 110. 

Arnold, M., poem on Words- 
worth compared to Watson's, 
48. 

Arvine, W. B., 332. 

Aumonier, S., quotation from, 
213. 

Austin, A., 28. 



Bacon, L., 332. 

Barker, G., production of 
Dynasts, 18; remark on 
Shaw, 220. 

Beers, H. A., 312-316. 

Benet, S. V., 332, 333. 

Benet, W. R., 327-329. 

Bishop, J. P., 296, 297. 

Blackwell, B. H., a publisher, 
156. 

Bradley, W. A., 297, 298. 

Braithwaite, W. S., his anthol- 
ogy, 270, 296. 

Branch, A. H., a leader, 245; 
poems, 256-261; education, 

339 



257; passion, 257-259; con- 
trasted with Masters, 261. 

Bridges, R., poet-laureate, 28; 
his verse, 29, 30. 

Brooke, R., canonized, 46; Gib- 
son on, 110; poems, 124-130; 
letters, 127; Rowland prize, 
140; compared to De La 
Mare, 144; The Soldier, 337. 

Browne, T., compared to Yeats, 
169. 

Browning, R., concentration, 
23; Pauline, 43; on spiritual 
blessings, 47; lack of experi- 
ence, 72 ; self-consciousness, 
75; Christmas Eve, 81; nat- 
ural poetry, 96 ; metre of One 
Word More, 107; The Olove, 
122; Ogniben's remark, 125 ^ 
compared to Brooke, 128; 
temperament, 161; contrasted 
with Yeats, 168; Masters 
compared to, 265; Confes- 
sions, 314. 

Burns, R., influence on democ- 
racy, 50. 

Burton, R., 200. 

Bynner, W., 303-305. 

Byron, Lord, sales of his poems, 
45; wit compared to Wat- 
son's, 54; common sense, 159. 

Calderon, G., remark on Che- 
khov, 241. 
Campbell, J., 189, 190. 



340 



INDEX 



Carlin, F., 192. 

Carlyle, T., remark on Ci-om- 
well, 234. 

Chaucer, 6., effect on Masefield, 
72, 82. 

Chekhov, A., centrifugal force, 
241. 

Clapp, F. M., 332. 

Cleghorn, S. N., 284-286. 

Coleridge, S. T., remark on po- 
etry, 249. 

Colton, A., 329. 

Colum, P., 185, 186. 

Conrad, J., compared to Scott, 
1. 

Cooke, E. v., 201. 

Corbin, A., 283, 284. 

Crane, S., Red Badge of Cour- 
age, 109, 335. 

Crashaw, R.., his editor, 131. 

Davidson, J., test of poetry, 37. 

Davies, M. C, 282. 

Davies, W. H., 150, 151. 

Davis, F. S., 280, 281. 

De La Mare, W., homage to, 46; 
poems, 139-145; compared to 
Hawthorne, 140: retirement, 
140-143; Listeners, 141, 142; 
Shakespeare portraits, 142; 
Old Susan, 143; Peacock Pie, 
144. 

Dodd, L. W., 330-332. 

Donne, J., reputation, 56; stim- 
ulant, 253. 

Drake, F., German statue to, 
61 ; poem by Noyes, 61. 

Drinkwater, J., 148-150. 



Egan, M. F., 191, 192. 

Eliot, T. S., 293. 

Emerson, R. W., prophecy on 

poetry, 142. 
Erskine, J., 300. 



Flecker, J. E., 130-139; post- 
hiimous editor of, 130 ; trans- 
lations, 134; aims, 135; Oak 
and Olive, 137; religion, 137; 
Jerusalem, 138. 

Fletcher, J. G., 306, 307. 

Foulke, W. D., 204, 205. 

Frost, R., dedication by Thomas, 
152; poems, 235-237; theo- 
ries, 237; outdoor poet, 238; 
realism, 240; tragedy, 241- 
243; pleasure of recognition, 
243, 244. 

Garrison, T., 281, 282. 

Gibson, W. W., homage to, 46; 
poems, 98-114; Stonefolds, 
99-101; Daily Bread, 101- 
104; Fires, 104-106; Thor- 
oughfares, 106; war poems, 
107-111; Livelihood, 111; 
latest work, 112-114; his 
contribution, 114. 

Gladstone, W. E., eulogy by 
Phillips, 41. 

Glaenzer, R. B., 325, 326. 

Goethe, J. W., Flecker's trans- 
lation of, 134; poise, 159. 

Grainger, P., great artist, 34; 
audacities, 227. 

Graves, R., 155. 

Gray, T., on laureateship, 28; 
compared to Hodgson, 115; 
compared to Masters, 268. 

Griffis. E., 332. 

Griffiths, W., 298-300. 



Hagedorn, H., 305. 

Hardy, T., 14-28 ; a forerunner, 
15; Dynasts, 16; idea of 
God, 19-22; pessimism, 22 
thought and music, 23, 24 
Moments of Vision, 24-28 
Housman's likeness to, 66. 



INDEX 



341 



Hawthorne, N., compared to De 
La Mare, 140. 

Henley, W. E., 5-9; compared 
to Thompson, 5; paganism, 
6; lyrical power, 7. 

Hodgson, R., 114-123; a re- 
cluse, 115; love of animals, 
116, 119-122; humour, 118; 
compared to Alice Corbin, 
284. 

Hooker, B., 321, 322. 

Housman, A. E., 6.5-70; mod- 
ernity, 65; scholarship, 65; 
likeness to Hardy, 66; pa- 
ganism and pessimism, 66; 
lyrical power, 69. 

Hughes, R., 322-324. 

Hyde, D., influence, 172. 

Ibsen, H., student of the Bible, 
261. 

Jacobus, D., 332. 

James, H., tribute to Brooke, 

126. 
Johnson, R. U., 198-200. 

Keats, J., Phillips compared to, 
37; influence on Amy Low- 
ell, 246; Endymion, 251; 
Amy Lowell's sonnet on, 251. 

Kilmer, J., 337. 

Kipling, R., 28-33; imperial 
laureate, 28; Recessional, 29; 
popularity, 30, 31; influence 
on soldiers, 31, 32; Watson's 
allusion to, 45, 46; Danny 
Deever, 227. 

Landor, W. S., his violence, 160. 
Lawrence, D. H., 145-148. 
Ledwidge, F., 186, 187. 
Leonard, W. E., 300. 
Lewis, C. M., 316, 317. 
Lindsay, N. V., 213-235; Har- 



riet Monroe's magazine, 214 ; 
Booth, 214, 220-222; devel- 
opment, 216; drawings, 217; 
"games," 217, 218; Congo, 
219, 220, 226, 227; Niagara, 
223; prose, 224, 225; chants, 
226; geniality, 230-233; 
Esther, 295. 

Locke, W. J., his dreams, 60. 

Low, B. R. C, 326, 327. 

Lowell, 'A. L., love of liberty, 
246. 

Lowell, Amy, essay on Frost, 
236; poems, 245-256; train- 
ing, 245-247 ; free verse, 248, 
249; imagism, 250; Sword 
Blades, 252, 253; narrative 
skill, 253, 254; polyphonic 
prose, 255, 256; versatility, 
256; remark on Seeger, 336. 

Lowell, P., influence on Amy, 
246. 

MacDonagh, T., 188, 189. 

Mackaye, P., 305, 306; stipend 
for poets, 44; poems, 305, 
306. 

MacLeish, A., 332. 

Maeterlinck, M., compared to 
Yeats, 167; rhythmical prose, 
255. 

Markham, E., 201. 

Marquis, D., 275. 

Masefield, J., homage to, 46; 
poems, 71-97; the modern 
Chaucer, 72, 73, 82, 83; edu- 
cation, 72-74; Dauber, 75, 
76; critical power, 77; rela- 
tion to Wordsworth, 77-79, 
84, 85; Everlasting Mercy, 
80; Widow in the Bye Street, 
82, 83; Daffodil Fields, 84- 
90; compared to Tennyson, 
86-90; August, 191Jf, 90, 91, 
337; lyrics, 92; sonnets, 93; 



342 



INDEX 



Rosas, 94; novels, 94; gen- 
eral contribution, 95; Drink- 
water's dedication, 148; Ai- 
ken's relation to, 307. 

Masters, E. L., 261-271; edu- 
cation, 261, 262; Spoon 
River, 262-270; irony, 266; 
love of truth, 267; analysis, 
268; cynicism, 269; idealism, 
269. 

Meredith, G., his poems, 16. 

Middleton, S., 296. 

Milton, J., his invocation, 17; 
Piedmont sonnet, 50. 

Mitchell, S., 187. 

Monroe, H., her magazine, 214, 
215, 283; her anthology, 283; 
poems, 282-284. 

Moody, W. v., 195, 196. 

Morley, J., remarks on Irish- 
men and Wordsworth, 160, 
161. 

Munger, R., 324, 325. 

Neihardt, J. G., 293, 294. 

Nichols, R., 154-156. 

Nicholson, M., poems, 303; re- 
mark on college stories, 313. 

Noyes, A., homage to, 46; 
poems, 56-65; education, 57; 
singing power, 58; Tramp 
Transfigured, 59, 63 ; his mas- 
terpiece, 59; child imagina- 
tion, 60; sea poetry, 61; 
Drake, 61; May-Tree, 62; 
new effects, 63; war poems, 
64; optimism, 64. 

O'Conor, N. J., poems, 192; re- 
mark on Seeger, 335. 
O'Sullivan, S., 190, 191. 

Peabody, J. P., 206-209. 
Percy, W. A., 308-310. 
Phillips, S., 35-41; sudden 



fame, 35; education, 36; 
Marpessa, 38; realism, 40; 
Gladstone, 40, 41; protest 
against Masefield, 79. 
Pierce, F. E., 318-321. 

Quarles, F., quoted, 252. 
Quiller-Couch, A., remark on 
the Daffodil Fields, 87. 

Rand, K., 332. 

Reedy, W. M., relation to Mas- 
ters, 263. 

Rice, C. Y., 205, 206. 

Riley, J. W., remark on Hen- 
ley, 7; "Riley Day," 46; re- 
mark on Anna Branch, 256; 
a conservative, 257. 

Rittenhouse, J. B., 286, 287. 

Robinson, C. R., 301, 302. 

Robinson, E. A., 209-212. 

Robinson, F. N., remark on 
Seeger, 335. 

Rogers, R. C, 322. 

Sandburg, C, 289-291. 

Santayana, G., 196-198. 

Sassoon, S., 155. 

Scott, W., compared to Conrad, 
1 ; sales of his poems, 45. 

Seeger, A., 310, 311; Low's 
dedication, 326; source of his 
poem, 335-337. 

Service, R. W., likeness to Kip- 
ling, 33. 

Shakespeare, W., compared to 
Wordsworth, 2; compared to 
Masefield, 93; portraits by 
De La Mare, 142; poem on 
by Masters, 270. 

Shaw, G. B., Major Barbara, 
220. 

Spingarn, J., creative criticism, 
49. 



INDEX 



343 



Squire, J. C, introduction to 
Flecker, 131. 

Stephens, J., 182-185; novels, 
182; discovered by A. E., 
178, 18^2; realism, 183; child- 
poetry, 183, 184; power of 
cursing, 184. 

Stevenson, R. L., remark on 
Whitman, 146. 

Stork, C. W., 294, 295. 

Swinburne, A. C, critical vio- 
lence, 77 ; Lindsay's likeness 
to, 217; Lindsay's use of, 232. 

Synge, J. M., advice from 
Yeats, 164; works, 171-177; 
versatility, 172; bitterness, 
173; theory of poetry, 175, 
176; autobiographical poems, 
176; thoughts on death, 177; 
influence on Stephens, 183. 

Teasdale, S., 277-280. 

Tennyson, A., continued popu- 
larity of, 10; his invocation, 
17; compared to Hardy, 24; 
early poems on death, 67; 
compared to Masefield, 86- 
88; his memoirs, 130; his re- 
serve, 160; quality of his po- 
etry, 253. 

Tliomas, E., 152-154. 

Thomas, E. M., 202. 

Thompson, F., 9-14; compared 
to Henley, 9; religious pas- 
sion, 9, 10; In No Strange 
Land, 12; Lilium Regis, 13; 
Noyes's ode to, 58; Flecker's 
poem on, 133. 

Trench, H., 191. 

Underwood, J. C, 291-293. 
Untermeyer, L., 271-275. 
Updegraff, A., 329-330. 

VanDyke, H., 202, 203. 



Vaughan, H., quoted, 308. 
Viele, H. K., 205. 

Wallis, J. H., 332. 

Watson, W., 41-56; poor start, 
41; address in America, 43; 
King Alfred, 44; Words- 
worth's Grave, 44, 48; epi- 
grams, 47, 48 ; How Weary is 
Our Heart, 50 ; hymn of hate, 
51; war poems, 52; Yellow 
Pansy, 53; Byronic wit, 54; 
Eloping Angels, 54; dislike of 
new poetry, 55. 

Weaving, w"., 155, 156. 

Wells, H. G., religious position, 
48. 

\\Tiitman, W., natural style, 
56; Man of War Bird, 73 
early conventionality, 98 
Stevenson's remark on, 146 
growth of reputation, 249 
Sandburg's relation, 290. 

Whitney, H. H., 301. 

Whitsett, W. T., 300, 301. 

Widdemer, M., 287-289. 

Wilcox, E. W., 201. 

Willcocks, M. P., remark on 
will, 8. 

W^oodberry, G. E., 203, 204. 

Wordsworth, W., compared to 
Shakespeare, 3 ; Watson's 
poem on, 48, 49; Masefield's 
relations to, 77-79, 84, 8^5. 

Yeats, W. B., 162-171; educa- 
tion, 162; devotion to art, 
164, 165, 170, 191; his names, 
165; love poetry, 166, 167; 
dramas, 168; prose, 168-171; 
mysticism, 179; relation to 
Lindsay, 226. 

Younghusband, G., remark on 
Kipling, 31. 



^^i 



